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THE TIME MACHINE 




\ - 













































t 











THE TIME MACHINE 

AN INVENTION 


BY 

H, G. WELLS 

i\ 


M Fool! All that is at all 
Lasts ever past recall.” 

—Browning 



NEW YORK 

HENRY HOLT AMD COMPANY 


Copyright, 1895, 

BY 

HENRY HOLT & CO 


November, 1922 



PRINTED IN THE U. S. A 


AUTHOR’S NOTE 


The Time Traveler's Story and a part of 
the introductory conversation appeared as a 
serial in the New Review. Several descrip¬ 
tive passages in the story had previously 
appeared in dialogue form in the National 
Observer , and the explanation of the “prin¬ 
ciples” of Time Traveling given in this book 
is inserted from the latter paper. I desire 
to make the usual acknowledgments. 

H. G. W. 


v 









CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

PAGE 

I. 

The Inventor, 

i 

II. 

The Time Traveler Re¬ 



turns, .... 

25 

III. 

The Story Begins, 

38 

IV. 

The Golden Age, . 

52 

V. 

Sunset, .... 

63 

VI. 

The Machine is Lost, . 

79 

VII. 

The Strange Animal, 

92 

VIII. 

The Morlocks, 

120 

IX. 

When the Night Came, 

134 

X. 

The Palace of Green Por¬ 



celain, 

151 

XI. 

In the Darkness of the 



Forest, .... 

168 

XII. 

The Trap of the White 



Sphinx, 

185 

XIII. 

The Further Vision, 

192 

XIV. 

After The Time Travel¬ 



er’s Story, . 

207 


vii 


















THE TIME MACHINE. 


CHAPTER I. 

TZhe fnventor. 

|HE man who made the 
Time Machine—the man I 
1 shall call the Time Traveler 
—was well known in scientific circles 
a few years since, and the fact of his 
disappearance is also well known. 
He was a mathematician of peculiar 
subtlety, and one of our most con¬ 
spicuous investigators in molecular 
physics. He did not confine himself 
to abstract science. Several ingeni¬ 
ous, and one or two profitable, patents 
were his: very profitable they were, 
these last, as his handsome house at 
Richmond testified. To those who 







2 


THE TIME MACHINE. 


were his intimates, however, his 
scientific investigations were as noth¬ 
ing to his gift of speech. In the 
after-dinner hours he was ever a 
vivid and variegated talker, and at 
times his fantastic, often paradoxical, 
conceptions came so thick and close 
as to form one continuous discourse. 
At these times he was as unlike the 
popular conception of a scientific in¬ 
vestigator as a man could be. His 
cheeks would flush, his eyes grow 
bright; and the stranger the ideas 
that sprang and crowded in his 
brain, the happier and the more 
animated would be his exposition. 

Up to the last there was held at 
his house a kind of informal gather¬ 
ing, which it was my privilege to at¬ 
tend, and where, at one time or 
another, I have met most of our dis¬ 
tinguished literary and scientific men. 
There was a plain dinner at seven. 
After that we would adjourn to a 
room of easy-chairs and little tables, 
and there, with libations of alcohol 




THE INVENTOR. 


3 


and reeking pipes, we would invoke 
the god. At first the conversation 
was mere fragmentary chatter, with 
some local lacuna of digestive 
silence ; but toward nine or half-past 
nine, if the god was favorable, some 
particular topic would triumph by a 
kind of natural selection, and would 
become the common interest. So it 
was, I remember, on the last Thurs¬ 
day but one of all—the Thursday 
when I first heard of the Time 
Machine. 

I had been jammed in a corner 
with a gentleman who shall be dis¬ 
guised as Filby. He had been run¬ 
ning down Milton—the public neg¬ 
lects poor Filby’s little verses shock¬ 
ingly ; and as I could think of 
nothing but the relative status of 
Filby and the man he criticised, and 
was much too timid to discuss that, 
the arrival of that moment of fusion, 
when our several conversations were 
suddenly merged into a general dis¬ 
cussion, was a great relief to me. 


4 


THE TIME MACHINE. 


“ What's that is nonsense ?” said a 
well-known Medical Man, speaking 
across Filby to the Psychologist. 

“ He thinks,” said the Psycholo¬ 
gist, “that Time’s only a kind of 
Space.” 

“ It’s not thinking,” said the Time 
Traveler; “it’s knowledge.” 

“Foppish affectation,” said Filby, 
still harping upon his wrongs; but 
I feigned a great interest in this 
question of Space and Time. 

“ Kant-” began the Psycholo¬ 

gist. 

“ Confound Kant ! ” said the Time 
Traveler. “ I tell you I’m right. 
I’ve got experimental proof of it. 
I’m not a metaphysician.” He ad¬ 
dressed the Medical Man across the 
room, and so brought the whole 
company into his own circle. “ It’s 
the most promising departure in ex¬ 
perimental work that has ever been 
made. It will simply revolutionize 
life. Heaven knows what life will be 
when I’ve carried the thing through.” 


THE INVENTOR. 


5 


“ As long as it’s not the water of 
immortality I don’t mind,” said the 
distinguished Medical Man. “ What 
is it ?” 

“ Only a paradox,” said the Psy¬ 
chologist. 

The Time Traveler said nothing 
in reply, but smiled and began tap¬ 
ping his pipe upon the fender curb. 
This was the invariable presage of 
a dissertation. 

“You have to admit that time is a 
spatial dimension,” said the Psychol¬ 
ogist, emboldened by immunity and 
addressing the Medical Man, “and 
then all sorts of remarkable con¬ 
sequences are found inevitable. 
Among others, that it becomes pos¬ 
sible to travel about in time.” 

The Time Traveler chuckled. 
“ You forget that I’m going to prove 
it experimentally.” 

“ Let’s have your experiment,” said 
the Psychologist. 

“ I think we’d like the argument 
first,” said Filby. 


6 


THE TIME MACHINE . 


“ It's this,” said the Time Traveler. 
“ You must follow me carefully. I 
shall have to controvert one or two 
ideas that are almost universally ac¬ 
cepted. The geometry, for instance, 
they taught you at school is founded 
on a misconception.” 

“ Is not that rather a large thing 
to expect us to begin upon ? ” said 
Filby. 

“I do not mean to ask you to 
accept anything without reasonable 
ground for it. You will soon admit 
as much as I want from you. You 
know, of course, that a mathematical 
line, a line of thickness nil, has no 
real existence. They taught you 
that ? Neither has a mathematical 
plane. These things are mere ab¬ 
stractions.” 

“ That is all right,” said the 
Psychologist. 

“ Nor, having only length, breadth, 
and thickness, can a cube have a real 
existence.” 

“There I object,” said Filby. 


THE INVENTOR. 


7 


“ Of course a solid body may exist. 

All real things-” 

“ So most people think. But wait 
a moment. Can an instantaneous 
cube exist ? ” 

“ Don’t follow you,” said Filby. 

“ Can a cube that does not last 
for any time at all, have a real 
existence ? ” 

Filby became pensive. 

“Clearly,” the Philosophical In¬ 
ventor proceeded, “any real body 
must have extension in four direc¬ 
tions : it must have Length, Breadth, 
Thickness, and — Duration. But 
through a natural infirmity of the 
flesh, which I will explain to you in 
a moment, we incline to overlook 
the fact. There are really four 
dimensions, three which we call the 
three planes of Space, and a fourth, 
Time. There is, however, a tend¬ 
ency to draw an unreal distinction 
between the former three dimen¬ 
sions and the latter, because it hap¬ 
pens that our consciousness moves 





8 


THE TIME MACHINE . 


intermittently in one direction along 
the latter from the beginning to the 
end of our lives.” 

“ That,” said a Very Young Man, 
making spasmodic efforts to relight 
his cigar over the lamp: “that— 
very clear indeed.” 

“ Now, it is very remarkable that 
this is so extensively overlooked,” 
continued the Philosophical Inven¬ 
tor, with a slight accession of cheer¬ 
fulness. “ Really this is what is 
meant by the Fourth Dimension, 
though some people who talk about 
the Fourth Dimension do not know 
they mean it. It is only another 
way of looking at Time. There is 
no difference between Time and any of 
the three dimensions of Space except 
that our consciousness moves along it. 
But some foolish people have got 
hold of the wrong side of that idea. 
You have all heard what they have to 
say about this Fourth Dimension ? ” 

“ I have not,” said the Provincial 
Mayor. 


THE INVENTOR. 


9 


“ It is simply this, That space, as 
our mathematicians have it, is spoken 
of as having three dimensions, which 
one may call Length, Breadth, and 
Thickness, and is always definable 
by reference to these planes, each at 
right angle to the others. But some 
philosophical people have been ask¬ 
ing why three dimensions particularly 
—why not another direction at right 
angles to the other three ?—and have 
even tried to construct a Four-Dimen¬ 
sional geometry. Professor Simon 
Newcomb was expounding this to 
the New York Mathematical Society 
only a month or so ago. You know 
how on a flat surface, which has only 
two dimensions, we can represent a 
figure of a Three-Dimensional solid, 
and similarly they think that by 
models of three dimensions they 
could represent one of four—if they 
could master the perspective of the 
thing. See?” 

“ I think so,” murmured the Pro¬ 
vincial Mayor ; and, knitting his 


10 


THE TIME MACHINE. 


brows, he lapsed into an introspective 
state, his lips moving as one who re¬ 
peats mystic words. “Yes, I think 
I see it now,” he said after some 
time, brightening in a quite transi¬ 
tory manner. 

“ Well, I do not mind telling you I 
have been at work upon this geom¬ 
etry of Four Dimensions for some 
time. Some of my results are curi¬ 
ous : for instance, here is a portrait 
of a man at eight years old, another 
at fifteen, another at seventeen, an¬ 
other at twenty-three, and so on. All 
these are evidently sections, as it 
were, Three-Dimensional representa¬ 
tions of his Four-Dimensional being, 
which is a fixed and unalterable 
thing. 

“ Scientific people,” proceeded the 
Philosopher, after the pause required 
for the proper assimilation of this, 
“ know very well that Time is only 
a kind of Space. Here is a popular 
scientific diagram, a weather record. 
This line I trace with my finger shows 


THE INVENTOR. 


II 


the movement of the barometer. 
Yesterday it was so high, yesterday 
night it fell, then this morning it rose 
again, and so gently upward to here. 
Surely the mercury did not trace this 
line in any of the dimensions of space 
generally recognized ? But certainly 
it traced such a line, and that line, 
therefore, we must conclude, was 
along the Time Dimension.” 

“ But,” said the Medical Man, 
staring hard at a coal in the fire, “ if 
Time is really only a fourth dimen¬ 
sion of Space, why is it, and why has 
it always been, regarded as something 
different ? And why cannot we move 
about in Time as we move about in 
the other dimensions of Space ? ” 

The Philosophical Person smiled. 
“ Are you so sure we can move freely 
in Space ? Right and left we can 
go, backward and forward freely 
enough, and men always have done 
so. I admit we move freely in two 
dimensions. But now about up and 
down ? Gravitation limits us there.” 


12 


THE TIME MACHINE 


“ Not exactly,” said the Medical 
Man. “ There are balloons.” 

“ But before the balloons, save for 
spasmodic jumping and the inequali¬ 
ties of the surface, man had no free¬ 
dom of vertical movement.” 

“ Still they could move a little up 
and down,” said the Medical Man. 

“ Easier, far easier, down than 
up.” 

“ And you cannot move at all in 
Time. You cannot get away from 
the present moment.” 

“ My dear sir, that is just where 
you are wrong. That is just where 
the whole world has gone wrong. 
We are always getting away from 
the present moment. Our mental 
existences, which are immaterial 
and have no dimensions, are passing 
along the Time Dimension with a 
uniform velocity from the cradle to 
the grave. Just as we should travel 
down if we began our existence fifty 
miles above the earth’s surface.” 

“But the great difficulty is this,” 


THE INVENTOR. 


13 


interrupted the Psychologist: “ You 
can move about in all directions of 
Space, but you cannot move about 
in Time." 

“ That is the germ of my great dis¬ 
covery. But you are wrong to say 
that we cannot move about in Time. 
For instance, if I am recalling an in¬ 
cident very vividly I go back to the 
instant of its occurrence; I become 
absent-minded, as you say. I jump 
back for a moment. Of course we 
have no means of staying back for any 
length of time any more than a sav¬ 
age or an animal has of staying six 
feet above the ground. But a civil¬ 
ized man is better off than the savage 
in this respect. He can go up against 
gravitation in a balloon, and why 
should we not hope that ultimately 
he may be able to stop or accelerate 
his drift along the Time Dimension ; 
or even to turn about and travel the 
other way ? ’’ 

“Oh, this** began Filby, “ is 
»» 


all- 


14 


THE TIME MACHINE. 


“ Why not ? ” said the Philosoph¬ 
ical Inventor. 

“It’s against reason,” said Filby. 

“What reason?” said the Philo¬ 
sophical Inventor. 

“You can show black is white by 
argument,” said Filby, “but you will 
never convince me.” 

“ Possibly not,” said the Philosophi¬ 
cal Inventor. “ But now you begin 
to see the object of my investigations 
into the geometry of Four Dimen¬ 
sions. Long ago I had a vague ink¬ 
ling of a machine-” 

“ To travel through Time ! ” said 
the Very Young Man. 

“ That shall travel indifferently in 
any direction of Space and Time, as 
the driver determines.” 

Filby contented himself with laugh¬ 
ter. 

“ It would be remarkably con¬ 
venient,” the Psychologist suggested. 
“ One might travel back and witness 
the battle of Hastings.” 

“ Don’t you think you would at- 


THE INVENTOR. 


15 


tract attention ? ” said the Medical 
Man. “ Our ancestors had no great 
tolerance for anachronisms.” 

“ One might get one’s Greek from 
the very lips of Homer and Plato,” 
the Very Young Man thought. 

“ In which case they would cer¬ 
tainly plow you for the little-go. 
The German scholars have improved 
Greek so much.” 

“ Then, there is the future,” said 
the Very Young Man. “ Just think ! 
One might invest all one’s money, 
leave it to accumulate at interest, 
and hurry on ahead.” 

‘‘To discover a society,” said I, 
“ erected on a strictly communistic 
basis.” 

“ Of all the wild extravagant 
theories-” began the Psychologist. 

“ Yes, so it seemed to me, and so I 
never talked of it until-” 

“ Experimental verification ! ” cried 
I. “You are going to verify that! ” 

“ The experiment ! ” cried Filby, 
who was getting brain-weary. 


16 THE TIME MACHINE. 

“ Let’s see your experiment, any¬ 
how,” said the Psychologist, “ though 
it’s all humbug, you know.” 

The Time Traveler smiled round 
at us. Then, still smiling faintly, 
and with his hands deep in his 
trousers pockets, he walked slowly 
out of the room, and we heard his 
slippers shuffling down the long pas¬ 
sage to his laboratory. 

The Psychologist looked at us. 
“ I wonder what he’s got ? ” 

“Some sleight-of-hand trick or 
other,” said the Medical Man, and 
Filby tried to tell us about a conjuror 
he had seen at Burslem, but before he 
had finished his preface the Time 
Traveler came back, and Filby’s 
anecdote collapsed. 

The thing the Time Traveler held 
in his hand was a glittering metallic 
framework, scarcely larger than a 
small clock, and very delicately made. 
There was ivory in it, and some 
transparent crystalline substance. 
And now I must be explicit, for 


THE INVENTOR. 


7 


this that follows—unless his explan¬ 
ation is to be accepted—is an abso¬ 
lutely unaccountable thing. He took 
one of the small octagonal tables 
that were scattered about the room, 
and set it in front of the fire, with 
two legs on the hearthrug. On this 
table he placed the mechanism. 
Then he drew up a chair and sat 
down. The only other object on the 
table was a small shaded lamp, the 
bright light of which fell full upon 
the model. There were also perhaps 
a dozen candles about, two in brass 
candlesticks upon the mantel and 
several in sconces, so that the room 
was brilliantly illuminated. I sat in 
a low armchair nearest the fire, and I 
drew this forward so as to be almost 
between the Time Traveler and the 
fireplace. Filby sat behind him, 
looking over his shoulder. The 
Medical Man and the Rector 
watched him in profile from the 
right, the Psychologist from the left. 
We were all on the alert. It ap- 


18 the time machine . 

pears incredible to me that any kind 
of trick, however subtly conceived 
and however adroitly done, could 
have been played upon us under 
these conditions. 

The Time Traveler looked at us 
and then at the mechanism. 

“ Well ? ” said the Psychologist. 

“ This little affair,” said the Time 
Traveler, resting his elbows upon the 
table and pressing his hands together 
above the apparatus, “ is only a 
model. It is my plan for a machine 
to travel through Time. You will 
notice that it looks singularly askew, 
and that there is an odd twinkling 
appearance about this bar, as though 
it was in some way unreal.” He 
pointed to the part with his finger. 
“ Also, here is one little white lever, 
and here is another.” 

The Medical Man got up out of 
his chair and peered into the thing. 
“ It's beautifully made,” he said. 

” It took two years to make,” re¬ 
torted the Time Traveler. Then, 


THE INVENTOR. 


19 


when we had all done as the Medical 
Man, he said : “ Now I want you 
clearly to understand that this lever, 
being pressed over, sends the machine 
gliding into the future, and this other 
reverses the motion. This saddle 
represents the seat of a time traveler. 
Presently I am going to press the 
lever, and off the machine will go. 
It will vanish, pass into future time, 
and disappear. Have a good look at 
the thing. Look at the table too, 
and satisfy yourselves there is no 
trickery. I don't want to waste this 
model, and then be told I’m a 
quack.” 

There was a minute’s pause 
perhaps. The Psychologist seemed 
about to speak to me, but changed 
his mind. Then the Time Traveler 
put forth his finger toward the lever. 
“ No,” he said suddenly; “ lend 
me your hand.” And turning to the 
Psychologist, he took that individual’s 
hand in his own and told him to put 
out his forefinger. So that it was 


20 


THE TIME MACHINE. 


the Psychologist himself who sent 
forth the model Time Machine on 
its interminable voyage. We all saw 
the lever turn. I am absolutely cer¬ 
tain there was no trickery. There 
was a breath of wind, and the lamp 
flame jumped. One of the candles 
on the mantel was blown out, and 
the little machine suddenly swung 
round, became indistinct, was seen as 
a ghost for a second perhaps, as an 
eddy of faintly glittering brass and 
ivory ; and it was gone—vanished ! 
Save for the lamp the table was bare. 

Everyone was silent for a minute. 
Then Filby said he was d-d. 

The Psychologist recovered from 
his stupor, and suddenly looked 
under the table. At that the 
Time Traveler laughed cheerfully. 
“ Well ? ” he said, with a reminis¬ 
cence of the Psychologist. Then, 
getting up, he went to the tobacco 
jar on the mantel, and with his back 
to us began to fill his pipe. * 

We stared at each other. 


THE INVENTOR. 


21 


“ Look here,” said the Medical 
Man, “are you in earnest about this ? 
Do you seriously believe that that 
machine has traveled into Time ? ” 

“ Certainly,” said the Time Trav¬ 
eler, stooping to light a spill at the 
fire. Then he turned, lighting his 
pipe, to look at the Psychologist’s 
face. (The Psychologist, to show 
that he was not unhinged, helped 
himself to a cigar and tried to light 
it uncut.) “ What is more, I have a 
big machine nearly finished in there,” 
—he indicated the laboratory,—“ and 
when that is put together I mean to 
have a journey on my own account.” 

“You mean to say that that ma¬ 
chine has traveled into the future ? ” 
said Filby. 

“ Into the future or the past—I 
don’t, for certain, know which.” 

After an interval the Psychologist 
had an inspiration. 

“ It must have gone into the past 
if it has gone anywhere,” he said. 

“ Why ? ” said the Time Traveler. 


22 


THE TIME MACHINE. 


" Because I presume that it has 
not moved in space, and if it traveled 
into the future it would still be here 
all this time, since it must have 
traveled through this time.” 

“ But,” said I, “ if it traveled into 
the past it would have been visible 
when we came first into this room ; 
and last Thursday when we were 
here ; and the Thursday before that ; 
and so forth ! " 

“ Serious objections," remarked 
the Rector with an air of impartiality, 
turning toward the Time Traveler. 

“Not a bit," said the Time 
Traveler, and, to the Psychologist : 
“ You think. You can explain that. 
It’s presentation below the threshold, 
you know, diluted presentation." 

“ Of course,” said the Psychologist, 
and reassured us. “ That’s a simple 
point in psychology. I should have 
thought of it. It’s plain enough, and 
helps the paradox delightfully. We 
cannot see it, nor can we appreciate 
this machine, any more than we can 


THE INVENTOR. 


23 


the spoke of a wheel spinning, or a 
bullet flying through the air. If it is 
traveling through time fifty times or 
a hundred times faster than we are, 
if it gets through a minute while we 
get through a second, the impression 
it creates will of course be only one- 
fiftieth or one-hundredth of what it 
would make if it were not traveling 
in time. That’s plain enough.” He 
passed his hand through the space in 
which the machine had been. “You 
see ? ” he said laughing. 

We sat and stared at the vacant 
table for a minute or so. Then the 
Time Traveler asked us what we 
thought of it all. 

“ It sounds plausible enough to¬ 
night,” said the Medical Man ; “but 
wait until to-morrow. Wait for the 
common sense of the morning.” 

“ Would you like to see the Time 
Machine itself?” asked the Time 
Traveler. And therewith, taking the 
lamp in his hand, he led the way 
down the long, draughty corridor to 


24 


THE TIME MACHINE. 


his laboratory. I remember vividly 
the flickering light, his queer, broad 
head in silhouette, the dance of the 
shadows, how we all followed him, 
puzzled but incredulous, and how 
there in the laboratory we beheld a 
larger edition of the little mechanism 
which we had seen vanish from be¬ 
fore our eyes. Parts were of nickel, 
parts of ivory, parts had certainly 
been filed or sawn out of rock crystal. 
The thing was generally complete, 
but the twisted crystalline bars lay 
unfinished upon the bench beside 
some sheets of drawings, and I took 
one up for a better look at it. 
Quartz it seemed to be. 

“ Look here,’* said the Medical 
Man, “ are you perfectly serious ? 
Or is this a trick—like that ghost 
you showed us last Christmas ? ” 

“ Upon that machine,” said the 
Time Traveler, holding the lamp 
aloft, “ I intend to explore Time. Is 
that plain ? I was never more serious 
in my life.” 


CHAPTER IL 

Gbe ZUnc traveler IRcturna* 


THINK that at that time 
none of us quite believed 
in the Time Machine. 
The fact is, the Time Traveler was 
one of those men who are too 
clever to be believed ; you never 
felt that you saw all round him ; you 
always suspected some subtle re¬ 
serve, some ingenuity in ambush, be¬ 
hind his lucid frankness. Had Filby 
shown the model and explained the 
matter in the Time Traveler’s words, 
we should have shown him far less 
skepticism. The point is, we should 
have seen his motives—a pork- 
butcher could understand Filby. 
But the Time Traveler had more 
than a touch of whim among his 
elements, and we distrusted him. 
Things that would have made the 
fame of a clever man seemed tricks 



as 





26 


THE TIME MACHINE . 


in his hands. It is a mistake to do 
things too easily. The serious peo¬ 
ple who took him seriously never felt 
quite sure of his deportment; they 
were somehow aware that trusting 
their reputations for judgment with 
him was like furnishing a nursery 
with eggshell china. So I don’t 
think any of us said very much about 
time traveling in the interval between 
that Thursday and the next, though 
its odd potentialities ran, no doubt, 
in most of our minds : its plausibility, 
that is, its practical incredibleness, 
the curious possibilities of anachro¬ 
nism and of utter confusion it sug¬ 
gested. For my own part, I was 
particularly preoccupied with the 
trick of the model. That I remem¬ 
ber discussing with the Medical Man, 
whom I met on Friday at the Lin- 
naean. He said he had seen a similar 
thing at Tubingen, and laid consider¬ 
able stress on the blowing-out of the 
candle. But how the trick was done 
he could not explain. 


THE TIME TRAVELER RETURNS. 27 


The next Thursday I went again 
to Richmond—I suppose I was one 
of the Time Traveler’s most constant 
guests—and, arriving late, found four 
or five men already assembled in his 
drawing room. The Medical Man 
was standing before the fire with a 
sheet of paper in one hand and his 
watch in the other. I looked round 
for the Time Traveler, and— 

“ It’s half-past seven now,” said 
the Medical Man, “ I suppose we’d 
better have dinner ? ” 

“Where’s-?” said I, naming 

our host. 

“You’ve just come? It’s rather 
odd. He’s unavoidably detained. 
He asks me in his note to lead off 
with dinner at seven if he’s not back. 
Says he’ll explain when he comes.” 

“ It’s seems a pity to let the dinner 
spoil,” said the Editor of a well- 
known daily paper ; and thereupon 
the Doctor rang the bell. 

The Psychologist was the only per¬ 
son besides the Doctor and myself 




28 


THE TIME MACHINE. 


who had attended the previous din¬ 
ner. The other men were Blank, the 
Editor afore-mentioned, a certain 
journalist, and another—a quiet, shy- 
man with a beard—whom I didn’t 
know, and who, as far as my observa¬ 
tion went, never opened his mouth 
all the evening. There was some 
speculation at the dinner-table about 
the Time Traveler’s absence, and I 
suggested time traveling, in a half- 
jocular spirit. The Editor wanted 
that explained to him, and the Psy¬ 
chologist volunteered a wooden ac¬ 
count of the “ ingenious paradox and 
trick ” we had witnessed that day 
week. He was in the midst of his 
exposition when the door from the 
corridor opened slowly and without 
noise. I was facing the door, and 
saw it first. 

“ Hallo ! ” I said. “ At last!” 

And the door opened wider, and 
the Time Traveler stood before us. 
I gave a cry of surprise. 

“ Good Heavens, man ! what’s the 




THE TIME TRAVELER RETURNS. 29 

matter ? ” cried the Medical Man, 
who saw him next. And the whole 
tableful turned toward the door. 

He was in an amazing plight. His 
coat was dusty and dirty, and smeared 
with green down the sleeves ; his 
hair disordered, and as it seemed to 
me grayer—either with dust and dirt 
or because its color had actually 
faded. His face was ghastly pale; 
his chin had a brown cut on it—a 
cut half-healed ; his expression was 
haggard and drawn, as by intense 
suffering. For a moment he hesitated 
in the doorway, as if he had been 
dazzled by the light. Then he came 
into the room. He walked with just 
such a limp as I have seen in foot¬ 
sore tramps. We stared at him in 
silence, expecting him to speak. 

He said not a word, but came pain¬ 
fully to the table, and made a motion 
toward the wine. The Editor filled 
a glass of champagne and pushed it 
toward him. He drained it, and it 
seemed to do him good ; for he looked 


30 


THE TIME MACHINE. 


round the table, and the ghost of his 
old smile flickered across his face. 

“ What on earth have you been up 
to, man ? ” said the Doctor. 

The Time Traveler did not seem to 
hear. “ Don’t let me disturb you,” he 
said, with a certain faltering articula¬ 
tion. “ I’m all right.” He stopped, 
held out his glass for more, and took it 
off at a draught. “ That’s good,” he 
said. His eyes grew brighter, and a 
faint color came into his cheeks. His 
glance flickered over our faces with 
a certain dull approval, and then went 
round the warm and comfortable 
room. Then he spoke again, still as 
it were feeling his way among his 
words. “ I’m going to wash and 
dress, and then I’ll come down and 
explain things. Save me some of 
that mutton. I’m starving for a bit 
of meat.” 

He looked across at the Editor, 
who was a rare visitor, and hoped he 
was all right. The Editor began a 
question. 


THE TIME TRAVELER RETURNS. 31 

“ Tell you presently,” said the Time 
Traveler. “I’m — funny! Be all 
right in a minute.” 

He put down his glass, and walked 
toward the staircase door. Again I 
remarked his lameness and the soft 
padding sound of his footfall, and 
standing up in my place I saw his 
feet as he went out. He had nothing 
on them but a pair of tattered, blood¬ 
stained socks. Then the door closed 
upon him. I had half a mind to fol¬ 
low, till I remembered how he de¬ 
tested any fuss about himself. Fora 
minute, perhaps, my mind was wool 
gathering. Then, “ Remarkable Be¬ 
havior of an Eminent Scientist,” I 
heard the Editor say, thinking (after 
his wont) in headlines. And this 
brought my attention back to the 
bright dinner table. 

" What’s the game ? ” said the 
Journalist. “ Has he been doing the 
Amateur Cadger ? I don’t follow.” 

I met the eye of the Psychologist, 
and read my own interpretation in 


32 


THE TIME MACHINE. 


his face. I thought of the Time 
Traveler limping painfully upstairs. 
I don’t think anyone else had noticed 
his lameness. 

The first to recover completely 
from this surprise was the Medical 
Man, who rang the bell—the Time 
Traveler hated to have servants wait¬ 
ing at dinner—for a hot plate. At 
that the Editor turned to his knife 
and fork with a grunt, and the Silent 
Man followed suit. The dinner was 
resumed. Conversation was exclam' 
atory for a little while, with gaps of 
wonderment; and then the Editor 
got fervent in his curiosity. 

“ Does our friend eke out his mod¬ 
est income with a crossing, or has he 
his Nebuchadnezzar phases ? ” he 
inquired. 

“ I feel assured it’s this business of 
the Time Machine,” I said, and took 
up the Psychologist’s account of our 
previous meeting. 

The new guests were frankly incred¬ 
ulous. The Editor raised objections. 


THE TIME TEA VELER RETURNS. 33 


“ What was this time traveling ? 
A man couldn’tcover himself with dust 
by rolling in a paradox, could he ? ” 

And then, as the idea came home to 
him, he resorted to caricature. Hadn’t 
they any clothes-brushes in the Future ? 
The Journalist, too, would not be¬ 
lieve at any price, and joined the 
Editor in the easy work of heaping 
ridicule on the whole thing. They 
were both the new kind of Journalist 
—very joyous, irreverent young men. 
“ Our Special Correspondent in the 
Day After To-Morrow reports,” the 
Journalist was saying—or rather 
shouting—when the Time Traveler 
came back. He was dressed in ordi¬ 
nary evening clothes, and nothing 
save his haggard look remained of 
the change that had startled me. 

“I say,”said the Editor hilariously, 
“ these chaps here say you have 
been traveling into the middle of 
next week! Tell us all about little 
Rosebery, will you ? What will yov 
take for the lot ? ” 



34 


THE TIME MACHINE. 


The Time Traveler came to the 
place reserved for him without a 
word. He smiled quietly, in his old 
way. 

“ Where’s my mutton ? ” he said. 
“ What a treat it is to stick a fork 
into meat again ! ” 

“ Story !” cried the Editor. 

“Story be d-d !” said the Time 

Traveler. “ I want something to eat. 
I won’t say a word until I get some 
peptone into my arteries. Thanks! 
And the salt.” 

“ One word,” said I. “ Have you 
been time traveling ? ” 

“Yes,” said the Time Traveler, 
with his mouth full, nodding his head. 

“ I’d give a shilling a line for a 
verbatim note,” said the Editor. The 
Time Traveler pushed his glass 
toward the Silent Man and rang it 
with his finger nail; at which the 
Silent Man, who had been staring 
at his face, started convulsively, and 
poured him wine. The rest of the 
dinner was uncomfortable. For my 


THE TIME TRAVELER RETURNS. 35 

own part, sudden questions kept on 
rising to my lips, and I dare say it 
was the same with the others. The 
Journalist tried to relieve the tension 
by telling anecdotes of Hettie Potter. 
The Time Traveler devoted his at¬ 
tention to his dinner, and displayed 
the appetite of a tramp. The Medi¬ 
cal Man smoked a cigarette, and 
watched the Time Traveler through 
his eyelashes. The Silent Man 
seemed even more clumsy than usual, 
and drank champagne with regularity 
and determination out of sheer nerv¬ 
ousness. At last the Time Traveler 
pushed his plate away, and looked 
round us. 

“ I suppose I must apologize,” 
he said. “ I was simply starving. 
I’ve had a most amazing time.” He 
reached out his hand for a cigar, 
and cut the end. “ But come into 
the smoking room. It’s too long a 
story to tell over greasy plates.” And 
ringing the bell in passing, he led the 
way into the adjoining room. 


36 


THE TIME MACHINE . 


“ You have told Blank and Dash 
and Chose about the machine ?” he 
said to me, leaning back in his easy- 
chair and naming the three new 
guests. 

“ But the thing’s a mere paradox,” 
said the Editor. 

“ I can’t argue to-night. I don’t 
mind telling you the story, but I can’t 
argue. I will,” he went on, “ tell 
you the story of what has happened 
to me, if you like, but you must re¬ 
frain from interruptions. I want to 
tell it. Badly. Most of it will 
sound like lying. So be it! It’s 
true—every word of it, all the same. 
I was in my laboratory at four 

o’clock, and since then- I’ve 

lived eight days—such days as no 
human being ever lived before! 
I’m nearly worn out, but I shan’t 
sleep till I’ve told this thing over to 
you. Then I shall go to bed. But 
no interruptions ! Is it agreed ? ” 

M Agreed !” said the Editor, and 
the rest of us echoed “ Agreed! ” 



THE TIME TRAVELER RETURNS. 37 


And with that the Time Traveler 
began his story as I have set it forth. 
He sat back in his chair at first, and 
spoke like a weary man. Afterward 
he got more animated. In writing it 
down I feel with only too much keen¬ 
ness the inadequacy of pen and ink— 
and, above all, my own inadequacy— 
to express its quality. You read, I 
will suppose, attentively enough ; but 
you cannot see the speaker's white, 
sincere face in the bright circle of the 
little lamp, nor hear the intonation 
of his voice. You cannot know how 
his expression followed the turns of 
his story ! Most of us hearers were 
in shadow, for the candles in the 
smoking room had not been lighted, 
and only the face of the Journalist 
and the legs of the Silent Man from 
the knees downward were illumin¬ 
ated. At first we glanced now and 
again at each other. After a time we 
ceased to do that, and looked only 
at the Time Traveler’s face. 


CHAPTER III. 
Gbe Storg ^Seains. 



TOLD some of you last 
Thursday of the principles 
of the Time Machine, and 
showed you the actual thing itself, 
incomplete, in the workshop. There 
it is now, a little travel-worn, truly; 
and one of the ivory bars is cracked, 
and a brass rail bent; but the rest of 
it is sound enough. I expected to 
finish it on Friday ; but on Friday, 
when the putting together was nearly 
done, I found that one of the nickel 
bars was exactly one inch too short, 
and this I had to get re-made ; so 
that the thing was not complete until 
this morning. It was at ten o’clock 
to-day that the first of all Time Ma¬ 
chines began its career. I gave it 
a last tap, tried all the screws again, 
38 




THE STORY BEGINS. 


39 


put one more drop of oil on the 
quartz rod, and sat myself in the 
saddle. I suppose a suicide who 
holds a pistol to his skull feels much 
the same wonder at what will come 
next as I felt then. I took the start¬ 
ing lever in one hand and the stop¬ 
ping one in the other, pressed the 
first, and almost immediately the 
second. I seemed to reel ; I felt a 
nightmare sensation of falling ; and, 
looking round, I saw the laboratory 
exactly as before. Had anything 
happened ? For a moment I sus¬ 
pected that my intellect had tricked 
me. Then I noted the clock. A 
moment before, as it seemed, it had 
stood at a minute or so past ten ; 
now it was nearly half-past three! 

“I drew a breath, set my teeth, 
gripped the starting lever with both 
my hands, and went off with a thud. 
The laboratory got hazy and went 
dark. Mrs. Watchett came in, and 
walked, apparently without seeing 
me, toward the garden door. I sup- 


40 


THE TIME MACHINE. 


pose it took her a. minute or so to 
traverse the place, but to me she 
seemed to shoot across the room like 
a rocket. I pressed the lever over 
to its extreme position. The night 
came like the turning out of a lamp, 
and in another moment came to¬ 
morrow. The laboratory grew faint 
and hazy, then fainter and ever 
fainter. To-morrow night came 
black, then day again, night again, 
day again, faster and faster still. An 
eddying murmur filled my ears and 
a strange, dumb confusedness de¬ 
scended on my mind. 

“ I am afraid I cannot convey the 
peculiar sensations of time-traveling. 
They are excessively unpleasant. 
There is a feeling exactly like that 
one has upon a switchback—of a 
helpless headlong motion ! I felt the 
same horrible anticipation, too, of 
an imminent smash. As I put on 
pace, day followed night, like the 
flap, flap, flap of some rotating body. 
The dim suggestion of the laboratory 


THE STORY BEGINS. 


41 


seemed presently to fall away from 
me, and I saw the sun hopping swiftly 
across the sky, leaping it every 
minute, and every minute marking a 
day. I supposed the laboratory had 
been destroyed, and I had come into 
the open air. I had a dim impression 
of scaffolding, but I was already go¬ 
ing too fast to be conscious of any 
moving things. The slowest snail 
that ever crawled dashed by too fast 
for me. The twinkling succession of 
darkness and light was excessively 
painful to the eye. Then in the 
intermittent darkness, I saw the 
moon spinning swiftly through her 
quarters from new to full, and had a 
faint glimpse of the circling stars. 
Presently, as I went on, still gaining 
velocity, the palpitation of night and 
day merged into one continuous 
grayness ; the sky took on a wonder¬ 
ful deepness of blue, a splendid lumi¬ 
nous color like that of early twilight; 
the jerking sun became a streak of 
fire, a brilliant arch in space, the 


42 


THE TIME MACHINE . 


moon a fainter fluctuating band ; and 
I could see nothing of the stars, save 
now and then a brighter circle flicker¬ 
ing in the blue. 

“The landscape was misty and 
vague. I was still on the hillside 
upon which this house now stands, 
and the shoulder rose above me gray 
and dim. I saw trees growing and 
changing like puffs of vapor, now 
brown, now green; they grew, 
spread, fluctuated, and passed away. 
I saw huge buildings rise up faint 
and fair, and pass like dreams. The 
whole surface of the earth seemed 
changing—melting and flowing under 
my eyes. The little hands upon the 
dials that registered my speed raced 
round faster and faster. Presently I 
noted that the sun belt swayed up and 
down, from solstice to solstice, in a 
minute or less, and that, conse¬ 
quently, my pace was over a year 
a minute ; and minute by minute 
the white snow flashed across the 
world and vanished, and was fol- 


THE STORY BEGINS. 


43 


lowed by the bright, brief green of 
spring. 

“ The unpleasant sensations of the 
start were less poignant now. They 
merged at last into a kind of hyster¬ 
ical exhilaration. I remarked, in¬ 
deed, a clumsy swaying of the 
machine, for which I was unable to 
account. But my mind was too 
confused to attend to it, so with a 
kind of madness growing upon me 
I flung myself into futurity. At first 
I scarce thought of stopping, scarce 
thought of anything but these new 
sensations. But presently a fresh 
series of impressions grew up in my 
mind,—a certain curiosity, and there¬ 
with a certain dread,—until they at 
last took complete possession of me. 
What strange developments of hu¬ 
manity, what wonderful advances 
upon our rudimentary civilization, I 
thought, might not appear when I 
came to look nearly into the dim, 
elusive world that raced and fluctu¬ 
ated before my eyes! I saw great 


44 


THE TIME MACHINE. 


and splendid architectures rising 
about me, more massive than any 
buildings of our own time, and yet, 
as it seemed, built of glimmer and 
mist. I saw a richer green flow up 
the hillside, and remain there with¬ 
out any wintry intermission. Even 
through the veil of my confusion the 
earth seemed very fair. And so my 
mind came round to the business of 
stopping. 

“ The peculiar risk lay in the pos¬ 
sibility of my finding some substance 
in the space which I, or the machine, 
occupied. So long as I traveled at 
a high velocity through time, this 
scarcely mattered: I . was, so to 
speak, attenuated—was slipping like 
a vapor through the interstices of 
intervening substances! But to 
come to a stop involved the jamming 
of myself, molecule by molecule, into 
whatever lay in my way, meant 
bringing my atoms into such in¬ 
timate contact with those of the 
obstacle that a profound chemical 



THE STORY BEGINS. 


45 


reaction—possibly a far-reaching 
explosion—would result, and blow 
myself and my apparatus out of the 
Rigid Universe—out of all possible 
dimensions—into theUnknown. This 
possibility had occurred to me again 
and again while I was making the 
machine ; but then I had cheerfully 
accepted it as an unavoidable risk— 
one of the risks a man has got to 
take ! Now the risk was inevitable* 
I no longer saw it in the same cheer¬ 
ful light. The fact is that, insen¬ 
sibly, the absolute strangeness of 
everything, the sickly jarring and 
swaying of the machine, above all 
the feeling of prolonged falling, had 
absolutely upset my nerve. I told 
myself that I could never stop, and 
with a gust of petulance I resolved 
to stop forthwith. Like an impatient 
fool, I lugged over the lever, and 
incontinently the thing went reeling 
over, and I was flung headlong 
through the air 

“ There was the sound of a clap 


46 


THE TIME MACHINE . 


of thunder in my ears. I may have 
been stunned for a moment A pit¬ 
iless hail was hissing round me, and 
I was sitting on soft turf in front 
of the overset machine. Everything 
still seemed gray, but presently I 
remarked that the confusion in my 
ears was gone. I looked round me. 
I was on what seemed to be a little 
lawn in a garden, surrounded by 
rhododendron bushes, and I noticed 
that their mauve and purple blos¬ 
soms were dropping in a shower un¬ 
der the beating of the hailstones. 
The rebounding, dancing hail hung 
in a little cloud over the machine, 
and drove along the ground like 
smoke. In a moment I was wet to 
the skin. * Fine hospitality,’ said I, 
* to a man who has traveled innumer¬ 
able years to see you ! ' 

“ Presently I thought what a fool 
I was to get wet. I stood up and 
looked round me. A colossal figure, 
carved apparently in some white 
stone, loomed indistinctly beyond 


THE STORY BEGINS. 


47 


the rhododendrons through the hazy 
downpour. But all else of the world 
was invisible. 

“ My sensations would be hard to 
describe. As the columns of hail 
grew thinner, I saw the white fig¬ 
ure more distinctly. It was very 
large, for a silver birch tree touched 
its shoulder. It was of white marble, 
in shape something like a winged 
sphinx, but the wings, instead of 
being carried vertically at the sides, 
were spread so that it seemed to 
hover. The pedestal, it appeared to 
me, was of bronze, and was thick 
with verdigris. It chanced that the 
face was toward me ; the sightless 
eyes seemed to watch me ; there was 
the faint shadow of a smile on the 
lips. It was greatly weatherworn, 
and that imparted an unpleasant sug¬ 
gestion of disease. I stood looking 
at it for a little space—half a minute, 
perhaps, or half an hour. It seemed 
to advance and to recede as the hail 
drove before it denser or thinner, 


48 THE TIME MACHINE. 

At last I tore my eyes from it for a 
moment, and saw that the hail cur¬ 
tain had worn threadbare, and that 
the sky was lightening with the prom¬ 
ise of the sun. 

“ I looked up again at the crouch¬ 
ing white shape, and the full te¬ 
merity of my voyage came suddenly 
upon me. What might appear when 
that hazy curtain was altogether 
withdrawn ? What might not have 
happened to men ? What if cruelty 
had grown into a common passion ? 
What if in this interval the race had 
lost its manliness, and had developed 
into something inhuman, unsympa¬ 
thetic, and overwhelmingly powerful ? 
I might seem some old-world savage 
animal, only the more dreadful and 
disgusting for our common likeness— 
a foul creature to be incontinently 
slain. 

“ Already I saw other vast shapes 
—huge buildings with intricate para¬ 
pets and tall columns, with a wooded 
hillside dimly creeping in upon me 


THE STORY BEGINS. 


49 


through the lessening storm. I was 
seized with a panic fear. I turned 
frantically to the Time Machine, and 
strove hard to readjust it. As I did 
so the shafts of the sun smote through 
the thunderstorm. The gray down¬ 
pour was swept aside and vanished 
like the trailing garments of a ghost. 
Above me, in the intense blue of 
the summer sky, some faint brown 
shreds of clouds whirled into noth¬ 
ingness. The great buildings about 
me stood out clear and distinct, shin¬ 
ing with the wet of the thunderstorm, 
and picked out in white by the un¬ 
melted hailstones piled along their 
courses. I felt naked in a strange 
world. I felt as perhaps a bird may 
feel in the clear air, knowing the 
hawk wings above and will swoop. My 
fear grew to frenzy. I took a breath¬ 
ing space, set my teeth, and again 
grappled fiercely, wrist and knee, with 
the machine. It gave under my des¬ 
perate onset and turned over. It 
struck my chin violently. One hand 


50 


THE TIME MACHINE . 


on the saddle, the other on the lever, 
I stood panting heavily in attitude to 
mount again. 

“ But with this recovery of a 
prompt retreat my courage recovered. 
I looked more curiously and less fear¬ 
fully at this world of the remote 
future. In a circular opening, high 
up in the wall of the nearer house, I 
saw a group of figures clad in rich 
soft robes. They had seen me, and 
their faces were directed toward me. 

“ Then I heard voices approaching 
me. Coming through the bushes by 
the white sphinx were the heads and 
shoulders of men running. One of 
these emerged in a pathway leading 
straight to the little lawn upon which 
I stood with my machine. He was 
a slight creature—perhaps four feet 
high—clad in a purple tunic, girdled 
at the waist with a leather belt. San¬ 
dals or buskins—I could not clearly 
distinguish which—where on his feet; 
his legs were bare to the knees, and 
his head was bare. Noticing that, I 


THE STORY BEGINS. 


51 


noticed for the first time how warm 
the air was. 

“ He struck me as being a very 
beautiful and graceful creature, but 
indescribably frail. His flushed face 
reminded me of the more beautiful 
kind of consumptive—that hectic 
beauty of which we used to hear so 
much. At the sight of him I sud¬ 
denly regained confidence. I took 
my hands from the machine. 


CHAPTER IV. 
Gbe OolDen Bge. 


N another moment we were 
standing face to face, I and 
this fragile thing out of 
futurity. He came straight up to 
me and laughed into my eyes. The 
absence of any sign of fear from his 
bearing struck me at once. Then 
he turned to the two others who 
were following him and spoke to 
them in a strange and very sweet 
and liquid tongue. 

“There were others coming, and 
presently a little group of perhaps 
eight or ten of these exquisite crea¬ 
tures were about me. One of them 
addressed me. It came into my 
head, oddly enough, that my voice 
was too harsh and deep for them. So 
I shook my head, and pointing to my 



52 





THE GOLDEN AGE. 


53 


ears, shook it again. He came a step 
forward, hesitated, and then touched 
my hand. Then I felt other soft 
little tentacles upon my back and 
shoulders. They wanted to make 
sure I was real. There was nothing 
in this at all alarming. Indeed, 
there was something in these pretty 
little people that inspired confid¬ 
ence—a graceful gentleness, a certain 
childlike ease. And besides, they 
looked so frail that I could fancy my¬ 
self flinging the whole dozen of them 
about like ninepins. But I made 
a sudden motion to warn them when 
I saw their little pink hands feeling 
at the Time Machine. Happily then, 
when it was not too late, I thought 
of a danger I had hitherto forgotten, 
and reaching over the bars of the 
machine I unscrewed the little levers 
that would set it in motion, and put 
these in my pocket. Then I turned 
again to see what I could do in the 
way of communication. 

“And then, looking more nearly 


54 


THE TIME MACHINE. 


into their features, I saw some further 
peculiarities in their Dresden china 
type of prettiness. Their hair, which 
was uniformly curly, came to a sharp 
end at the neck and cheek ; there 
was not the faintest suggestion of 
it on the face, and their ears were 
singularly minute. The mouths 
were small, with bright red, rather 
thin lips, and the little chins ran to 
a point. The eyes were large and 
mild ; and—this may seem egotism 
on my part—I fancied even then that 
there was a certain lack of the inter¬ 
est I might have expected in them. 

“ As they made no effort to com¬ 
municate with me, but simply stood 
round me smiling and speaking in 
soft cooing notes to each other, I 
began the conversation. I pointed 
to the Time Machine and to myself. 
Then, hesitating for a moment how 
to express Time, I pointed to the 
sun. At once a quaintly pretty little 
figure in checkered purple and white, 
followed my gesture, and then aston- 


THE GOLDEN AGE. 


55 


ished me by imitating the sound of 
thunder. 

“ For the moment I was staggered, 
though the import of his gesture 
was plain enough. The question 
had come into my mind abruptly : 
Were these creatures fools? You may 
hardly understand how it took me. 
You see I had always anticipated 
that the people of the year Eight 
Hundred Thousand odd would be 
incredibly in front of us in knowl¬ 
edge, art, everything. Then one of 
them suddenly asked me a question 
that showed him to be on the intel¬ 
lectual level of one of our five-year- 
old children—asked me, in fact, if 
I had come from the sun in a thun¬ 
derstorm ! It let loose the judgment 
I had suspended upon their clothes, 
their frail, light limbs, and fragile 
features. A flow of disappointment 
rushed across my mind. For a mo¬ 
ment I felt that I had built the Time 
Machine in vain. 

“ I nodded, pointed to the sun, 


56 


THE TIME MACHINE. 


and gave them such a vivid render¬ 
ing of a thunderclap as startled them,, 
They all withdrew a pace or so and 
bowed. Then came one laughing 
toward me, carrying a chain of 
beautiful flowers, altogether new to 
me, and put it about my neck. The 
idea was received with melodious 
applause ; and presently they were 
all running to and fro for flowers, 
and laughingly flinging them upon 
me until I was almost smothered 
with blossom. You who have never 
seen the like can scarcely imagine 
what delicate and wonderful flowers 
countless years of culture had 
created. Then someone suggested 
that their plaything should be ex¬ 
hibited in the nearest building, and 
so I was led past the sphinx of white 
marble, which had seemed to watch 
me all the while with a smile at my 
astonishment, toward a vast gray 
edifice of fretted stone. As I went 
with them the memory of my confi¬ 
dent anticipations of a profoundly 


THE GOLDEN AGE . 


57 


grave and intellectual posterity came, 
with irresistible merriment, to my 
mind. 

“ The building had a large entry 
and was altogether of colossal dimen¬ 
sions. I was naturally most occu¬ 
pied with the growing crowd of little 
people, and with the big open portals 
that yawned before me shadowy and 
mysterious. My general impression 
of the world I saw over their heads 
was of a tangled waste of beautiful 
bushes and flowers, a long neglected 
and yet weedless garden. I saw 
a number of tall spikes of strange 
white flowers, measuring a foot per¬ 
haps across the spread of the waxen 
petals. They grew scattered, as if 
wild, among the variegated shrubs, 
but, as I say, I did not examine them 
closely at this time. The Time 
Machine was left deserted on the 
turf among the rhododendrons. 

“ The arch of the doorway was 
richly carved, but naturally I did 
not observe the carving very nar- 


58 


THE TIME MACHINE. 


rowly, though I fancied I saw sugges¬ 
tions of old Phoenician decorations 
as I passed through, and it struck me 
that they were very badly broken and 
weather-worn. Several more brightly 
clad people met me in the doorway, 
and so we entered, I, dressed in dingy 
nineteenth century garments, looking 
grotesque enough, garlanded with 
flowers, and surrounded by an ed¬ 
dying mass of bright, soft-colored 
robes and shining white limbs, in 
a melodious whirl of laughter and 
laughing speech. 

“ The big doorway opened into a 
proportionately great hall hung with 
brown. The roof was in shadow, and 
the windows, partially glazed with 
colored glass, and partially unglazed, 
admitted a tempered light. The 
floor was made up of huge blocks of 
some very hard white metal, not 
plates nor slabs—blocks, and it was 
so much worn, as I judged by the 
going to and fro of past generations, 
as to be deeply channeled along the 


THE GOLDEN AGE. 


59 


more frequented ways. Transverse 
to the length were innumerable tables 
made of slabs of polished stone, 
raised, perhaps, a foot from the floor, 
and upon these were heaps of fruits. 
Some I recognized as a kind of hyper¬ 
trophied raspberry and orange, but 
for the most part they were strange. 

“ Between the tables were scattered 
a great number of cushions. Upon 
these my conductors seated them¬ 
selves, signing for me to do likewise. 
With a pretty absence of ceremony 
they began to eat the fruit with their 
hands, flinging peel, and stalks, and so 
forth, into the round openings in the 
sides of the tables. I was not loth 
to follow their example, for I felt 
thirsty and hungry. As I did so I 
surveyed the hall at my leisure. 

“ And perhaps the thing that struck 
me most was its dilapidated look. 
The stained-glass windows, which 
displayed only a geometrical pat¬ 
tern, were broken in many places, 
and the curtains that hung across the 


6o 


THE TIME MACHINE. 


lower end were thick with dust. 
And it caught my eye that the 
corner of the marble table near me 
was fractured. Nevertheless, the 
general effect was extremely rich and 
picturesque. There were, perhaps, a 
couple of hundred people dining in 
the hall, and most of them, seated as 
near to me as they could come, were 
watching me with interest, their little 
eyes shining over the fruit they were 
eating. All were clad in the same 
soft, and yet strong, silky material. 

“ Fruit, by the bye, was all their 
diet. These people of the remote 
future were strict vegetarians, and 
while I was with them, in spite of 
some carnal cravings, I had to be 
frugivorous also. Indeed, I found 
afterward that horses, cattle, sheep, 
dogs, had followed the ichthyosaurus 
into extinction. But the fruits were 
very delightful ; one, in particular, 
that seemed to be in season all the 
time I was there,—a floury thing in 
a three-sided husk,—was especially 


THE GOLDEN AGE. 


6l 


good, and I made it my staple. At 
first I was puzzled by all these 
strange fruits, and by the strange 
flowers I saw, but later I began to 
perceive their import. 

“ However, I am telling you of my 
fruit dinner in the distant future now. 
So soon as my appetite was a little 
checked, I determined to make a 
resolute attempt to learn the speech 
of these new men of mine. Clearly 
that was the next thing to do. The 
fruits seemed a convenient thing to 
begin upon, and holding one of these 
up I began a series of interrogative 
sounds and gestures. I had some 
considerable difficulty in conveying 
my meaning. At first my efforts met 
with a stare of surprise or inextin¬ 
guishable laughter, but presently a 
fair-haired little creature seemed to 
grasp my intention and repeated a 
name. They had to chatter and 
explain their business at great length 
to each other, and my first attempts 
to make their exquisite little sounds 


62 


THE TIME MACHINE. 


of the language caused an immense 
amount of genuine, if uncivil amuse¬ 
ment. However, I felt like a school¬ 
master amid children, and per¬ 
sisted, and presently I had a score 
of noun substantives at least, at my 
command ; and then I got to demon¬ 
strative pronouns, and even the verb 
* to eat.’ But it was slow work, and 
the little people soon tired and 
wanted to get away from my inter¬ 
rogations, so I determined, rather of 
necessity, to let them give their 
lessons in little doses when they felt 
inclined. And very little doses I 
found they were before long, for I 
never met people more indolent or 
more easily fatigued. 


CHAPTER V. 
Sunset. 


QUEER thing I soon dis¬ 
covered about my little 
hosts, and that was their 
lack of interest. They would come 
to me with eager cries of astonish¬ 
ment, like children, but, like children, 
they would soon stop examining me, 
and wander away after some other 
toy. The dinner and my conversa¬ 
tional beginnings ended, I noted for 
the first time that almost all those 
who had surrounded me at first were 
gone. It is odd, too, how speedily 
I came to disregard these little 
people. I went out through the 
portal into the sunlit world again as 
soon as my hunger was satisfied. I 
was continually meeting more of these 
men of the future, who would follow 
63 




6 4 


THE TIME MACHINE. 


me a little distance, chatter and 
laugh about me, and, having smiled 
and gesticulated in a friendly way, 
leave me again to my own devises. 

“ The calm of evening was upon 
the world as I emerged from the 
great hall, and the scene was lit by the 
warm glow of the setting sun. At first 
things were very confusing. Every¬ 
thing was so entirely different from 
the world I had known—even the 
flowers. The big building I had left 
was situated on the slope of a broad 
river valley, but the Thames had 
shifted, perhaps a mile from its 
present position. I resolved to 
mount to the summit of a crest, pos¬ 
sibly a mile and a half away, from 
which I could get a wider view of 
this our planet in the year 802,701, 
a. d. For that, I should explain, 
was the date the little dials of my 
machine recorded. 

61 As I walked I was watchful of 
every impression that could possibly 
help to explain the condition of 


SUNSET. 


65 


ruinous splendor in which I found 
the world—for ruinous it was. A 
little way up the hill, for instance, 
was a great heap of granite, bound 
together by masses of aluminum, a 
vast labyrinth of precipitous walls 
and crumbled heaps, amid which 
were thick heaps of very beautiful 
pagoda-like plants—nettles possibly, 
but wonderfully tinted with brown 
about the leaves, and incapable of 
stinging. It was evidently the dere¬ 
lict remains of some vast structure, 
built to what end I could not deter¬ 
mine. It was here that I was des¬ 
tined, at a later date, to have a very 
strange experience—the first intima¬ 
tion of a still stranger discovery— 
but of that I will speak in its proper 
place. 

“ Looking round, with a sudden 
thought,from a terrace on which I had 
rested for a while, I realized that there 
were no small houses to be seen. 
Apparently the single house, and 
possibly even the household, had 


66 


THE TIME MACHINE . 


vanished. Here and there among 
the greenery were palace-like build¬ 
ings, but the house and the cottage, 
which form such characteristic fea¬ 
tures of our own English landscape, 
had disappeared. 

“ * Communism,’ said I to myself. 

“And on the heels of that came 
another thought. I looked at the 
half dozen little figures that were 
following me. Then, in a flash, I 
perceived that all had the same form 
of costume, the same soft hairless 
visage, and the same girlish rotundity 
of limb. It may seem strange, per¬ 
haps, that I had not noticed this 
before. But everything was so 
strange. Now, I saw the fact plainly 
enough. In costume, and in all the 
differences of texture and bearing 
that now mark off the sex from each 
other, these people of the future were 
alike. And the children seemed to 
my eyes to be but the miniatures of 
their parents. I judged then that 
children of that time were extremely 


SUNSET. 


67 


precocious, physically at least, and I 
found afterward abundant verifica¬ 
tion of my opinion. 

“ Seeing the ease and security in 
which these people were living, I felt 
that this close resemblance of the 
sexes was, after all, what one would 
expect; for the strength of a man 
and the softness of a woman, the in¬ 
stitution of the family, and the differ¬ 
entiation of occupations are mere 
militant necessities of an age of 
physical force. Where population is 
balanced and abundant, much child¬ 
bearing becomes an evil rather than 
a blessing to the State ; where vio¬ 
lence comes but rarely and offspring 
are secure, there is less necessity— 
indeed there is no necessity—of an 
efficient family, and the specialization 
of the sexes with reference to their 
children’s needs disappears. We see 
some beginnings of this even in our 
own time, and in this future age it was 
complete. This, I must remind you, 
was my speculation at the time. 


68 


THE TIME MACHINE. 


Later, I was to appreciate how far it 
fell short of the reality. 

“ While I was musing upon these 
things, my attention was attracted by 
a pretty little structure, like a well 
under a cupola. I thought in a tran¬ 
sitory way of the oddness of wells 
still existing, and then resumed the 
thread of my speculations. There 
were no large buildings toward the 
top of the hill, and as my walking 
powers were evidently miraculous, I 
was presently left alone for the first 
time. With a strange sense of free¬ 
dom and adventure I pushed up to 
the crest. 

“ There I found a seat of some 
yellow metal that I did not recognize, 
corroded in places with a kind of 
pinkish rust and half smothered in 
soft moss, the arm rests cast and 
filed into the resemblance of griffins' 
heads. I sat down on it, and I sur¬ 
veyed the broad view of our old 
world under the sunset of that long 
day. It was as sweet and fair a view 


SUNSET. 


69 


as I have ever seen. The sun had 
already gone below the horizon and 
the west was flaming gold, touched 
with some horizontal bars of purple 
and crimson. Below was the valley 
of the Thames, in which the river 
lay like a band of burnished steel. 
I have ready spoken of the great 
palaces dotted about among the 
variegated greenery, some in ruins 
and some still occupied. Here and 
there rose a white or silvery figure in 
the waste garden of the earth, here 
and there came the sharp vertical 
line of some cupola or obelisk. 
There were no hedges, no signs of 
proprietary rights, no evidences of 
agriculture; the whole earth had 
become a garden. 

“ So watching, I began to put my 
interpretation upon the things I had 
seen, and as it shaped itself to me that 
evening, my interpretation was some¬ 
thing in this way (afterward I found 
I had got only a half truth, or only 
a glimpse of one facet of the truth) : 


70 


THE TIME MACHINE. 


“ It seemed to me that I had hap¬ 
pened upon humanity upon the wane. 
The ruddy sunset set me thinking of 
the sunset of mankind. For the first 
time I began to realize an odd con¬ 
sequence of the social effort in which 
we are at present engaged. And yet, 
come to think, it is a logical conse¬ 
quence enough. Strength is the 
outcome of need; security sets a 
premium on feebleness. The work 
of ameliorating the conditions of 
life—the true civilizing process that 
makes life more and more secure— 
had gone steadily on to a climax. 
One triumph of a united humanity 
over Nature had followed another. 
Things that are now mere dreams 
had become projects deliberately put 
in hand and carried forward. And 
the harvest was what I saw ! 

“ After all, the sanitation and the 
agriculture of to-day are still in the 
rudimentary stage. The science of 
our time has attacked but a little de¬ 
partment of the field of human dis- 


SUNSET. 


71 


ease, but, even so, it spreads its 
operations very steadily and persist¬ 
ently. Our agriculture and horticul¬ 
ture destroy just here and there a 
weed and cultivate perhaps a score 
or so of wholesome plants, leaving 
the greater number to fight out a 
balance as they can. We improve 
our favorite plants and animals—and 
how few they are—gradually by 
selective breeding; now a new and 
better peach, now a seedless grape, 
now a sweeter and larger flower, now 
a more convenient breed of cattle. 
We improve them gradually, because 
our ideals are vague and tentative, 
and our knowledge is very limited ; 
because Nature, too, is shy and slow 
in our clumsy hands. Some day all 
this will be better organized, and still 
better. That is the drift of the cur¬ 
rent in spite of the eddies. The 
whole world will be intelligent, edu¬ 
cated, and co-operating ; things will 
move faster and faster toward the 
subjugation of Nature. In the end, 


72 


THE TIME MACHINE. 


wisely and carefully we shall read¬ 
just the balance of animal and vege¬ 
table life to suit our human needs. 

“ This adjustment, I say, must have 
been done, and done well: done in¬ 
deed for all time, in the space of 
Time across which my machine had 
leaped. The air was free from gnats, 
the earth from weeds or fungi; every¬ 
where were fruits and sweet and 
delightful flowers ; brilliant butter¬ 
flies flew hither and thither. The 
ideal of preventive medicine was 
attained. Diseases had been stamped 
out. I saw no evidence of any con¬ 
tagious diseases during all my stay. 
And I shall have to tell you later that 
even the processes of putrefaction 
and decay had been profoundly 
affected by these changes. 

“ Social triumphs, too, had been 
effected. I saw mankind housed in 
splendid shelters, gloriously clothed, 
and as yet I had found them engaged 
in no toil. There were no signs of 
struggle, neither social nor economi- 


SUNSET. 


73 


ca! struggle. The shop, the adver¬ 
tisement, traffic, all that commerce 
which constitutes the body of our 
world, was gone. It was natural on 
that golden evening that I should 
jump at the idea of a social paradise. 

“The difficulty of increasing popu¬ 
lation had been met, I guessed, and 
population had ceased to increase, 

“ But with this change in condition 
comes inevitably adaptations to the 
change. What, unless biological 
science is a mass of errors, is the 
cause of human intelligence and 
vigor ? Hardship and freedom : 
conditions under which the active, 
strong, and subtle survive and the 
weaker go to the wall ; conditions 
that put a premium upon the loyal 
alliance of capable men, upon self- 
restraint, patience, and decision. And 
the institution of the family, and the 
emotions that arise therein, the fierce 
jealousy, the tenderness for offspring, 
parental self-devotion, all found their 
justification and support in the immi- 


74 


THE TIME MACHINE. 


nent dangers of the young. Now , 
where are those imminent dangers ? 
There is a sentiment arising, and it 
will grow, against connubial jealousy, 
against fierce maternity, against pas¬ 
sion of all sorts ; unnecessary things 
now, and things that make us uncom¬ 
fortable, savage survivals, discords in 
a refined and pleasant life. 

“ I thought of the physical slight¬ 
ness of the people, their lack of in¬ 
telligence, and those big abundant 
ruins, and it strengthened my belief 
in a perfect conquest of Nature. 
For after the battle comes Quiet. 
Humanity had been strong, energetic, 
and intelligent, and had used all its 
abundant vitality to alter the condi¬ 
tions under which it lived. And 
now came the reaction of the altered 
conditions. 

“ Under the new conditions of per¬ 
fect comfort and security, that rest¬ 
less energy, that with us is strength, 
would become weakness. Even in 
our own time certain tendencies and 


SUNSET. 


75 


desires, once necessary to survival, 
are a constant source of failure. 
Physical courage and the love of 
battle, for instance, are no great help 
—may even be hindrances—to a 
civilized man. And in a state of 
physical balance and security, power, 
intellectual as well as physical, would 
be out of place. For countless years 
I judged there had been no danger 
of war or solitary violence, no danger 
from wild beasts, no wasting disease 
to require strength of constitution, 
no need of toil. For such a life, 
what we should call the weak are as 
well equipped as the strong, are, 
indeed, no longer weak. Better 
equipped indeed they are, for the 
strong would be fretted by an energy 
for which there was no outlet. No 
doubt the exquisite beauty of the 
buildings I saw was the outcome of 
the last surgings of the now purpose¬ 
less energy of mankind before it 
settled down into perfect harmony 
with the conditions under which it 


76 THE TIME MACHINE. 

lived—the flourish of that triumph 
which began the last great peace. 
This has ever been the fate of energy- 
in security ; it takes to art and to 
eroticism, and then come languor 
and decay. 

44 Even this artistic impetus would 
at last die away—had almost died in 
the Time I saw. To adorn them¬ 
selves with flowers, to dance, to sing 
in the sunlight; so much was left 
of the artistic spirit, and no more. 
Even that would fade in the end 
into a contented inactivity. We are 
kept keen on the grindstone of pain 
and necessity, and it seemed to me 
that here was that hateful grindstone 
broken at last! 

“ As I stood there in the gathering 
dark I thought that in this simple ex¬ 
planation I had mastered the problem 
of the world—mastered the whole 
secret of these delicious people. 
Possibly the checks they had devised 
for the increase of population had 
succeeded too well, and their num- 


SUNSET. 


77 


bers had rather diminished than kept 
stationary. That would account for 
the abandoned ruins. Very simple 
was my explanation, and plausible 
enough—as most wrong theories are. 

M As I stood there musing over this 
too perfect triumph of man, the full 
moon, yellow and gibbous, came up 
out of an overflow of silver light in 
the northeast. The bright little fig¬ 
ure ceased to move about below, a 
noiseless owl flitted by, and I shiv¬ 
ered with the chill of the night. I 
determined to descend and find where 
I pould sleep. 

“ I looked for the building I knew. 
Then my eye traveled along to the 
figure of the white sphinx upon the 
pedestal of bronze, growing distinct 
as the light of the rising moon grew 
brighter. I could see the silver birch 
against it. There was the tangle of 
rhododendron bushes, black in the 
pale light, and there was the little 
lawn. I looked at the lawn again. 
A queer doubt chilled my com- 


78 THE TIME MACHINE . 

placency. * No,’ said I stoutly to 
myself, * that was not the lawn.’ 

“ But it was the lawn. For the 
white leprous face of the sphinx was 
toward it. Can you imagine what I 
felt as this conviction came home to 
me ? But you cannot. The Time 
Machine was gone ! 

“ At once, like a lash across the 
face, came the possibility of losing 
my own age, of being left helpless 
in this strange new world. The bare 
thought of it was an actual physical 
sensation. I could feel it grip me at 
the throat and stop my breathing. 


CHAPTER VL 

Gbe dbacbfne te ILost 


N another moment I was 
in a passion of fear, and 
running with great, leap¬ 
ing strides down the slope. Once 
I fell headlong and cut my face. I 
lost no time in stanching the blood, 
but jumped up and ran on, with a 
warm trickle down my cheek and 
chin. All the time I ran I was say¬ 
ing to myself : ‘ They have moved it 
a little—pushed it under the bushes 
out of the way/ Nevertheless, I ran 
with all my might. All the time, 
with the certainty that sometimes 
comes with excessive dread, I knew 
that such assurance was folly, knew 
instinctively that the machine was 
removed out of my reach. 

“My breath came with pain. I 



79 



8o 


THE TIME MACHINE, 


suppose I covered the whole dis¬ 
tance, from the hill crest to the little 
lawn, two miles perhaps, in ten min¬ 
utes. And I am not a young man. 
I cursed aloud as I ran at my confi¬ 
dent folly in leaving the machine, 
wasting good breath thereby. I 
cried aloud, and none answered. 
Not a creature seemed to be stirring 
in that moonlit world. 

“ When I reached the lawn my 
worst fears were realized. Not a 
trace of the thing was to be seen. 
I felt faint and cold when I faced 
the empty space among the black 
tangle of bushes. I ran round it 
furiously, as if the thing might be 
hidden in a corner, and then stopped 
abruptly with my hands clutching 
my hair. Above me towered the 
sphinx upon the bronze pedestal, 
white, shining, leprous in the light 
of the rising moon. It seemed to 
smile in mockery of my dismay. 

“ I might have consoled myself by 
imagining the little people had put 


THE MACHINE IS LOST. 


81 


the mechanism in some shelter for 
me, had not I felt assured of their 
physical and intellectual inadequacy. 
That is what dismayed me : the sense 
of some hitherto unsuspected power 
through whose intervention my in¬ 
vention had vanished. Yet of one 
thing I felt assured: unless some 
other age had produced its exact 
duplicate, the machine could not 
have moved in Time. The attach¬ 
ment of the levers—I will show you 
the method later—prevented anyone 
from tampering with it in that way 
when they were removed. It had been 
moved, and was hid, only in Space. 
But, then, where could it be ? 

“ I think I must have had a kind 
of frenzy. I remember running vio¬ 
lently in and out among the moonlit 
bushes all round the sphinx, and 
startling some white animal that in 
the dim light I took for a small deer. 
I remember, too, late that night, beat¬ 
ing the bushes with my clenched 
fists until my knuckles were gashed 


82 


THE TIME MACHINE . 


and bleeding from the broken 
twigs. 

“ Then, sobbing and raving in my 
anguish of mind, I went down to the 
great building of stone. The big 
hall was dark, silent, and deserted. 
I slipped on the uneven floor and fell 
over one of the malachite tables, 
almost breaking my shim I lit a 
match and went on past the dusty 
curtains of which I have told you. 

“ There I found a second great hall 
covered with cushions, upon which 
perhaps a score or so of the little peo¬ 
ple were sleeping. I have no doubt 
they found my second appearance 
strange enough, coming suddenly out 
of the quiet darkness with inarticulate 
noises and the splutter and flare of 
a match. For they had forgotten 
about matches. ‘ Where is my Time 
Machine ? ’ I began, bawling like an 
angry child, laying hands upon them 
and shaking them up together. It 
must have been very queer to them. 
Some laughed, most of them looked 


THE MACHINE IS LOST. 


83 


sorely frightened. When I saw them 
standing round me, it came into my 
head that I was doing as foolish a 
thing as it was possible for me to do 
under the circumstances, in trying 
to revive the sensation of fear. For 
reasoning from the daylight behavior 
I thought that fear must be for¬ 
gotten. 

“ Abruptly I dashed down the 
match, and knocking one of the people 
over in my course, went blundering 
across the big dining hall again out 
under the moonlight. I heard cries 
of terror and their little feet running 
and stumbling this way and that. 
I do not remember all I did as the 
moon crept up the sky. I suppose it 
was the unexpected nature of my 
loss that maddened me. I felt hope¬ 
lessly cut off from my own kind, 
a strange animal in an unknown 
world. I must have raved to and 
fro, screaming and crying upon God 
and Fate. I have a memory of 
horrible fatigue, as the long night of 


84 


THE TIME MACHINE . 


despair wore away, of looking in this 
impossible place and that, of grop¬ 
ing among moonlit ruins and touch¬ 
ing strange creatures in the black 
shadows ; at last, of lying on the 
ground near the sphinx and weeping 
with absolute wretchedness, even 
anger at the folly of leaving the 
machine having leaked away with 
my strength. I had nothing left but 
misery. 

“ Then I slept, and when I woke 
again it was full day, and a couple 
of sparrows were hopping around 
me upon the turf within reach of 
my arm. 

“ I sat up in the freshness of the 
morning trying to remember how 
I had got there, and why I had such 
a profound sense of desertion and 
despair. Then things came clear in 
my mind. With the plain, reasonable 
daylight I could look my circum¬ 
stances fairly in the face. I saw the 
wild folly of my frenzy overnight, 
and I could reason with myself. 


THE MACHINE IS LOST. 


85 


“ ‘ Suppose the worst/ said I,‘sup¬ 
pose the machine altogether lost— 
perhaps destroyed. It behooves me 
to be calm and patient, to learn the 
way of the people, to get a clear idea 
of the method of my loss and the 
means of getting materials and tools ; 
so that in the end, perhaps, I may 
make another. That would be my 
only hope, a poor hope, perhaps, but 
better than despair. And, after all, 
it was a beautiful and curious world. 

“ ‘ But probably the machine had 
only been taken away. Still, I must 
be calm and patient, find its hiding 
place, and recover it by force or 
cunning.’ And with that I scrambled 
to my feet and looked about me, 
wondering where I could bathe. I 
felt weary, stiff, and travel-soiled. 
The freshness of the morning made 
me desire an equal freshness. I had 
exhausted my emotion. Indeed, as 
I went about my business, I found 
myself wondering at my intense ex¬ 
citement overnight. 


86 


THE TIME MACHINE. 


“ That morning I made a careful 
examination of the ground about the 
little lawn. I wasted some time in 
futile questionings conveyed as well 
as I was able to such of the little 
people as came by. They all failed 
to understand my gestures—some 
were simply stolid ; some thought it 
was a jest, and laughed at me. I 
had the hardest task in the world to 
keep my hands off their pretty, laugh¬ 
ing faces. It was a foolish impulse, 
but the devil begotten of fear and 
blind anger was ill curbed, and still 
eager to take advantage of my per¬ 
plexity. The turf gave better coun¬ 
sel. I found a groove ripped in it, 
about midway between the pedestal 
of the sphinx and the marks of my 
feet where, on arrival, I had struggled 
with the overturned machine. There 
were other signs of the removal of 
a heavy body about, of queer, narrow 
footprints like those I could imagine 
made by a sloth. This directed my 
closer attention to the pedestal. It 


THE MACHINE IS LOST. 


87 


was, as I think I have said, of bronze. 
It was not a mere block, but highly 
decorated with deep-framed panels 
on either side. I went and rapped 
at these. The pedestal was hollow. 
Examining the panels with care, I 
found them discontinuous with the 
frames. There were no handles nor 
keyholes, but possibly the panels, if 
they were doors, as I supposed, opened 
from within. One thing was clear 
enough to my mind. It took no very 
great mental effort to infer that my 
Time Machine was inside that ped¬ 
estal. But how it got there was a 
different problem. 

“ I saw the heads of two orange-clad 
people coming through the bushes 
and under some blossom-covered 
apple trees toward me. I turned, 
smiling, to them, and beckoned them 
to me. They came, and then, point¬ 
ing to the bronze pedestal, I tried to 
intimate my wish to open it. But at 
my first gesture toward this, they be¬ 
haved very oddly. I don’t know how 


88 


THE TIME MACHINE. 


to convey their expression to you. 
Suppose you were to use a grossly 
improper gesture to a delicate-minded 
woman—it is how she would look. 
They went off as if they had received 
the last possible insult. 

“ However, I wanted access to the 
Time Machine ; so I tried a sweet¬ 
looking little chap in white next, with 
exactly the same result. Somehow, 
his manner made me ashamed of 
myself. But, as I say, I wanted the 
Time Machine. I tried one more. 
As he turned off like the others, my 
temper got the better of me. In 
three strides I was after him, had him 
by the loose part of his robe round 
the neck, and began dragging him 
toward the sphinx. Then I saw the 
horror and repugnance of his face, 
ind all of a sudden I let him go. 

“ But I was not beaten yet. I 
banged with my fist at the bronze 
panels. I thought I heard something 
stir inside—to be explicit, I thought 
I heard a sound like a chuckle—but 


THE MACHINE IS LOST. 


89 


I must have been mistaken. Then I 
got a big pebble from the river, and 
came and hammered till I had flat¬ 
tened a coil in the decorations, and 
the verdegris came off in powdery- 
flakes. The delicate little people 
must have heard me hammering in 
gusty outbreaks a mile away on either 
hand, but nothing came of it. I saw 
a crowd of them upon the slopes, 
looking furtively at me. At last, hot 
and tired, I sat down to watch the 
place. But I was too restless to 
watch long, and, besides, I am too 
Occidental for a long vigil. I could 
work at a problem for years, but to 
wait inactive for twenty-four hours— 
that is another matter. 

“ I got up after a time, and began 
walking aimlessly through the bushes 
toward the hill again. 

“ * Patience,’ said I to myself. ‘ If 
you want your machine again, you 
must leave that sphinx alone. If 
they mean to take your machine 
away, it's little good your wrecking 


9 o 


THE TIME MACHINE. 


their bronze panels, and if they don’t, 
you will get it back so soon as you 
can ask for it. To sit among all 
those unknown things before a puzzle 
like that is hopeless. That way lies 
monomania. Face this world. Learn 
its ways ; watch it; be careful of too 
hasty guesses at its meaning. In the 
end you will find clews to it all.' 

“ Then suddenly the humor of the 
situation came into my mind : the 
thought of the years I had spent in 
study and toil to get into the future 
age, and now my passion of anxiety 
to get out of it. I had made myself 
the most complicated and the most 
hopeless trap that ever a man devised. 
Although it was at my own expense, 
I could not help myself. I laughed 
aloud. 

“ Going through the big palace it 
seemed to me that the little people 
avoided me. It may have been 
my fancy, or it may have had 
something to do with my hammering 
at the gates of bronze. Yet I felt 


THE MACHINE IS LOST. 


91 


tolerably sure of the avoidance. I 
was careful, however, to show no 
concern, and to abstain from any 
pursuit of them, and in the course of 
a day or two things got back to the 
old footing. 





CHAPTER VII. 

Gbe Strange Bnimal* 

MADE what progress I 
could in the language, and 
in addition I pushed my ex¬ 
plorations here and there. Either I 
missed some subtle point or their 
language was excessively simple, al¬ 
most exclusively composed of con¬ 
crete substantives and verbs. There 
seemed to be few, if any, abstract 
terms, or little use of figurative lan¬ 
guage. Their sentences were usually 
simple and of two words, and I failed 
to convey or understand any but the 
simplest propositions. I determined 
to put the thought of my Time Ma¬ 
chine, and the mystery of the bronze 
doors under the sphinx, as much as 
possible in a corner of my memory 
until my growing knowledge would 



<j2 




THE STRANGE ANIMAL. 93 

lead me back to them in a natural 
way. Yet a certain feeling you may 
understand tethered me in a circle of 
a few miles round the point of my 
arrival. 

“ So far as I could see, all the world 
displayed the same exuberant rich¬ 
ness as the Thames valley. From 
every hill I climbed I saw the same 
abundance of splendid buildings, 
endlessly varied in material and style, 
the same clustering thickets of ever¬ 
greens, the same blossom-laden trees 
and tree ferns. Here and there 
water shone like silver, and beyond, 
the land rose into blue undulating 
hills and so faded into the serenity of 
the sky. 

“ A peculiar feature that presently 
attracted my attention was certain 
circular wells that appeared to sink 
to a profound depth. One layby the 
path up the hill which I had fol¬ 
lowed during my first walk. These 
wells were rimmed with bronze, curi¬ 
ously wrought, and often protected 


94 THE TIME MACHINE . 

by small cupolas from the rain. Sit¬ 
ting by the side of these, and peering 
down, I failed to see any gleam 
of water, and could catch no reflec¬ 
tion from a lighted match. I 
heard a peculiar dull sound ; thud, 
thud, thud, like the beating of some 
big engine, and I discovered from the 
flaring of the match that a steady 
current of air set down the shaft. 

“ Moreover, I carelessly threw a 
scrap of paper into the throat of the 
well, and instead of fluttering slowly 
down, it was at once sucked swiftly 
out of sight. After a time, too, I 
came to connect with these wells cer¬ 
tain tall towers that stood here and 
there upon the hill slopes. Above 
these there was often apparent a pe¬ 
culiar flicker of the air, much as one 
sees it on a hot day above a sun- 
scorched beach. 

“Putting these things together there 
certainly seemed to me a strong sug¬ 
gestion of an extensive system of 
subterraneous ventilation, though its 


THE STRANGE ANIMAL. 95 

true import was difficult to im¬ 
agine. I was at first inclined to asso¬ 
ciate it with the sanitary apparatus 
of these people. It was the obvious 
suggestion of these things, but it was 
absolutely wrong. 

“ And here I must admit that I 
learned very little of drains, and 
bells, and modes of conveyance and 
the like conveniences during my time 
in this real future. In some of the 
fictitious visions of Utopias and 
coming times I have read, there is a 
vast amount of detail about building 
construction and social arrange¬ 
ments and so forth. But while such 
details are easy enough to obtain 
when the whole world lies in one’s 
imagination, they are altogether in¬ 
accessible to a real traveler amid 
such realities as surrounded me. 
Conceive what tale of London a 
negro from Central Africa would 
take back to his tribe. What would 
he know of railway companies, of 
social movements, of telephone and 


96 THE TIME MACHINE. 

telegraph wires, of the parcels deliv¬ 
ery company, and postal orders ? 
And yet we at least would be willing 
enough to explain these things. And 
even of what he knew, how much 
could he make his untraveled friend 
believe ? Then think how little is 
the gap between a negro and a man 
of our times, and how wide the inter¬ 
val between myself and the Golden 
Age people. I was sensible of much 
that was unseen, and which con¬ 
tributed to my comfort, but save for 
a general impression of automatic 
organization, I fear I can convey very 
little of the difference to your minds. 

“In the matter of sepulcher, for 
instance, I could see no traces of 
crematoria or anything suggestive of 
tombs. But it occurred to me that 
possibly cemeteries or crematoria 
existed at some spot beyond the 
range of my explorations. This 
again was a question I deliberately 
put to myself, and upon which my 
curiosity was at first entirely de- 


THE STRANGE ANIMAL. 


97 


feated. Neither were there any old 
or infirm among them. 

“ I must confess that my satis¬ 
faction with my first theories at an 
automatic civilization and a decadent 
humanity did not endure. Yet I 
could think of none other. Let me 
put my difficulties. The several big 
palaces I had explored were mere 
living places, great dining halls and 
sleeping apartments. I could find 
no machinery, no appliances of any 
kind. Yet these people were clothed 
in pleasant fabrics that must at times 
need renewal, their sandals though 
without ornament were fairly com* 
plex specimens of metal work 
Somehow such things must be made. 
And the little people displayed no 
vestige of the creative tendencies of 
our time. There were no shops, no 
workshops, no indications of impor¬ 
tations from any other part of the 
earth. They spent all their time iff 
playing gently, in bathing in thf 
river, in making love in a half play 


98 THE TIME MACHINE. 

ful fashion, in eating fruit, and sleep¬ 
ing. I could not see how things 
were kept going. 

“Then again about the Time 
Machine. Something, I knew not 
what, had taken it into the hollow 
pedestal of the sphinx. Why ? For 
the life of me I could not imagine. 

“/Then there were those wells with¬ 
out water, those flickering pillars. I 
felt I missed a clew somewhere. I 
felt—how shall I say it ? Suppose 
you found an inscription with sen¬ 
tences here and there in excellent 
plain English, and interpolated 
therewith others made up of words, 
even of [letters, absolutely unknown 
to you. That was how the world of 
802,701 presented itself to me on the 
third day of my stay. 

“ On that day, too, I made a friend 
—of a sort. It happened that as I 
was watching some of the little people 
bathing in a shallow of the river, 
one of them was seized with cramp 
and began drifting down the stream. 


THE STRANGE ANIMAL. 


99 


The main current of the stream ran 
rather swiftly there, but not too 
swiftly for even a moderate swimmer. 
It will give you an idea, therefore, of 
the strange want of ideas of these peo¬ 
ple, when I tell you that none made 
the slightest attempt to rescue the 
weakly, crying little creature who 
was drowning before their eyes. 

“When I realized this I hurriedly 
slipped off my garments, and wading 
in from a point lower down, caught 
the poor little soul and brought her 
to land. 

“A little rubbing of the limbs soon 
brought her round, and I had the 
satisfaction of seeing that she was all 
right before I left her. I had got to 
such a low estimate of these little 
folks that I did not expect gratitude. 
In that, however, I was wrong. 

“ The incident happened in the 
morning. In the afternoon I met 
my little woman, as I believe it was, 
when I was returning toward my 
center from one of my explorations. 


IOO 


THE TIME MACHINE. 


and she received me with cries of 
delight and presented me with a big 
garland of flowers—evidently pre¬ 
pared for me. 

“ The action took my imagination. 
Very possibly I had been feeling 
desolate. At any rate I did my best 
to display my appreciation of the 
gift. 

“ We were soon seated together in 
a little stone arbor, engaged in a 
conversation that was chiefly smiles. 

“The little creature’s friendliness 
affected me exactly as a child’s 
might We passed each other 
flowers and she kissed my hands. I 
did the same to hers. Then I tried 
conversation and found out her name 
was Weena, which, though I don’t 
know what it meant, somehow 
seemed appropriate enough. That 
was the beginning of a queer friend¬ 
ship that lasted altogether a week 
and ended—as I will tell you. 

“ She was exactly like a child. She 
wanted to be with me always. She 


THE STRANGE ANIMAL. 


IOI 


tried to follow me everywhere, and it 
went to my heart to tire her out upon 
my next exploration and leave her 
behind at last exhausted, and calling 
after me rather plaintively. But the 
problems of the world had to be 
mastered. I had not, I said to my¬ 
self, come into the future to carry on 
a miniature flirtation. Yet her dis¬ 
tress when I left her was very great, 
her expostulations at the parting 
sometimes frantic, and I think alto¬ 
gether I had as much trouble as 
comfort from her affection. And 
yet she was, somehow, a very great 
comfort. 

“I thought it was mere childish 
affection that made her cling to me. 
Until it was too late, I did not 
clearly know what I had inflicted 
upon her when I left her. Nor, until 
it was too late, did I clearly under¬ 
stand what she was to me. For the 
little doll of a creature, by merely 
seeming fond of me and showing in 
her weak futile way that she cared 


102 


THE TIME MACHINE . 


for me, presently gave my return to 
the neighborhood of the white 
sphinx, almost the feeling of coming 
home. I would watch for her little 
figure of white and gold so soon as I 
came over the hill. 

“ It was from her, too, that I learned 
that fear had not altogether left the 
world. She was fearless enough in 
the daylight, and she had the oddest 
confidence in me—for once in a fool¬ 
ish moment I made threatening 
grimaces at her, and she simply 
laughed at them. But she dreaded 
the dark, dreaded shadows, dreaded 
black things. Darkness to her was 
the one fearful thing. It was a 
singularly passionate dread, and it 
set me thinking and observing. I 
discovered then, among other things, 
that these little people gathered into 
the great houses after dark, and slept 
a number together. To enter upon 
them without a light was to put them 
into a tumult of apprehension. I 
never found one out of doors or one 


THE STRANGE ANIMAL. 


103 


sleeping alone within doors after 
dark. 

“Yet I was still such a blockhead 
that I missed the lesson of that fear, 
and in spite of Weena’s evident dis¬ 
tress insisted upon sleeping away 
from these slumbering heaps of 
humanity. It troubled her greatly, 
but usually her odd affection for me 
triumphed, and for five of the nights 
of our acquaintance, including the last 
night of all, she slept with her head 
pillowed beside mine. But my story 
slips away from me as I speak of her. 

“ It must have been on the night be¬ 
fore I rescued Weena that I woke up 
about dawn. I had been restless, 
dreaming most disagreeably that I 
was drowned and that sea anemones 
were feeling over my face with their 
soft palps. I awoke with a start, and 
with an odd fancy that some grayish 
animal had just rushed out of the 
chamber in which I slept. 

I tried to get to sleep again, but I 
felt restless and uncomfortable. It 


104 


THE TIME MACHINE . 


was that dim gray hour when things 
are just creeping out of the darkness, 
when everything is colorless and 
clear cut and yet unreal, I got up 
and went down into the great hall 
and out upon the flagstones in front 
of the palace. I thought I would 
make a virtue of necessity and see 
the sunrise. 

“The moon was setting, and the 
dying moonlight and first pallor of 
dawn mingled together in a ghastly 
half-light. The bushes were inky 
black, the ground a somber gray, the 
sky colorless and cheerless. And up 
the hill slope I thought I saw ghosts. 
Three several times as I scanned the 
slope I saw white figures. Twice I 
fancied I saw a solitary white ape¬ 
like creature running rather quickly 
up the hill, and once near the ruins I 
saw a group of two carrying some 
dark body. They moved hastily. I 
did not see what became of them. 
It seemed that they vanished among 
the bushes. 


THE STRANGE ANIMAL . 


105 


“ The dawn was still indistinct, you 
must understand,. I was feeling that 
chill, uncertain, early morning feel¬ 
ing you may have experienced. I 
doubted my eyes. As the eastern 
sky grew brighter, and the light of 
the day increased, and vivid coloring 
came back to the world once more, I 
scanned the view keenly, but I saw 
no confirmation of my white figures. 
They were mere creatures of the half 
light. 

“ ‘ They must have been ghosts,” 
said I; “I wonder whence they 
dated/ 

“ For a queer notion of Grant 
Allen’s came into my head and 
amused me. If each generation dies 
and leaves ghosts, he argues, the 
world at last will get overcrowded 
with them. On that theory they 
would have become very thick in 
eight hundred thousand years from 
now, and it was no great wonder to 
see four all at once. But the jest 
was unsatisfactory, and I was think- 


THE TIME MACHINE . 


106 

ing of these figures all the morning 
until the rescue of Weena drove the 
subject out of my head. I associated 
them in some indefinite way with the 
white animal I had startled in my 
first passionate search for the Time 
Machine. But Weena was a pleasant 
substitute for such a topic. 

“ These ghostly shapes were soon 
destined to take possession of my 
mind in a far more vivid fashion. I 
think I have said how much hotter 
than our own was the weather of this 
future age. I cannot account for it. 
It may be the sun was hotter, or else 
the earth was nearer the sun. It is 
usual to assume that the sun will go 
on cooling steadily in the future, but 
people unfamiliar with such specula¬ 
tions as those of the younger Darwin, 
forget that the planets must ulti¬ 
mately, one by one, fall back into the 
parent body. As these catastrophies 
occur the sun will blaze out again 
with renewed energy. It may be 
that some inner planet had suffered 


THE STRANGE ANIMAL. 


107 


this fate. Whatever the reason, the 
fact remains that the sun was very 
much hotter than it is now. 

“ It was one very hot morning, my 
fourth morning, I think, as I was 
seeking a refuge from the heat and 
glare in a colossal ruin near the great 
house where I sheltered, that this 
remarkable incident occurred. Clam¬ 
bering among these heaps of masonry, 
I found a long narrow gallery, the end 
and side windows of which were 
blocked by fallen masses of masonry 
and which by contrast with the bril¬ 
liance outside seemed at first impene¬ 
trably dark to me. 

" I entered it groping, for the change 
from light to blackness made spots of 
color swim before me. Suddenly I 
halted spell-bound. A pair of eyes, 
luminous by reflection against the 
daylight without, was watching me 
out of the obscurity \ 

“ The old instinctive dread of wild 
animals came upon me. I clenched 
my hands and steadfastly looked into 


108 THE TIME MACHINE. 

the glaring eyeballs. I feared to 
turn. Then the thought of the ab¬ 
solute security in which humanity 
appeared to be living came to my 
mind. Then I remembered that 
strange dread of the dark. 

“ Overcoming my fear to some 
extent, I advanced a step, and 
spoke. I will admit that my voice 
was hoarse and ill controlled. I put 
out my hand, and touched some¬ 
thing soft 

“ At once the eyes darted sideways, 
and something white ran past me. I 
turned, with my heart in my mouth, 
and saw a queer little ape-like figure, 
with the head held down in a pecu¬ 
liar manner, running across the sun¬ 
lit space behind me. It blundered 
against a block of granite, staggered 
aside, and in a moment was hidden 
in a black shadow beneath another 
pile of ruined masonry. 

“ My impression of it was of course 
very imperfect. It was of a dull 
white color, and had strange, large, 


THE STRANGE ANIMAL. 


109 


grayish-red eyes. There was some 
flaxen hair on its head and down its 
back. But, as I say, it went too 
fast for me to see distinctly. I can¬ 
not even say whether it ran on all 
fours, or only with its fore arms held 
very low. 

“ After a momentary hesitation I 
followed the creature into the second 
heap of ruins. I could not find it 
there at first, but after a time, in the 
profound obscurity I came upon one 
of those round, well-like openings, 
of which I have told you, half closed 
by a fallen pillar. A sudden thought 
came to me. Could the thing have 
vanished down the shaft ? I lit a 
match, and, looking down, saw a 
small white moving figure, with large 
bright eyes, that regarded me stead¬ 
fastly as it retreated. 

“ The thing made me shudder. It 
was so like a human spider. It was 
clambering down the wall of the 
shaft, and now I noticed for the first 
time a number of metal projections 


no 


THE TIME MACHINE . 


for foot and hand, forming a kind of 
ladder down. 

“Suddenly the light burned my 
fingers and fell out of my hand, 
going out as it dropped ; and when 
I had lit another, the little monster 
had disappeared. 

“ I do not know how long I sat 
peering down the portentous well. 
Very slowly could I persuade myself 
that the thing I had seen was a man. 
But gradually the real truth dawned 
upon me ; that man had not remained 
one species, but had differentiated 
into two distinct animals ; that my 
graceful children of the upperworld 
were not the only descendants of the 
men of my generation, but that this 
bleached, nocturnal thing that had 
flashed before me, was also heir to 
our age. 

“ I thought of the flickering pillars, 
and of my theory of an underground 
ventilation. I began to suspect their 
true import. 

“ But what was this creature doing 


THE STRANGE ANIMAL. 


Ill 


in my scheme of a perfectly balanced 
organization? How was it related 
to the indolent serenity of the beau¬ 
tiful overworld people ? And what 
was hidden down below there ? I 
sat upon the edge of the well, telling 
myself I had nothing to fear in de¬ 
scending, and that there I must go 
for the solution of my difficulties, 
and withal I was absolutely afraid to 
go down. 

“As I hesitated, two of the beautiful 
upperworld people came running in 
their amorous sport, across the day¬ 
light into the shadow. One pursued 
the other, flinging flowers at her as 
he ran. They seemed disappointed 
when they found me with my arm 
against the overturned pillar, peering 
down the well. Apparently, it was 
considered bad form to notice these 
apertures, for when I pointed to it, 
and tried to frame a question about 
it in their tongue, they seemed dis¬ 
tressed, and turned away. They 
were, however, interested by my 


112 


THE TIME MACHINE. 


matches, and I struck several to 
amuse them. 

“ However, all my attempts to woo 
them toward the subject I wanted 
failed ; and presently I left them. 
I resolved to go back to Weena, and 
see what I could get from her. 

“ But my mind was already in revo¬ 
lution, my guesses and impressions 
slipping and sliding to a new adjust¬ 
ment. I had now the clew to these 
wells, to the ventilating towers, to 
the problem of the ghosts, and a 
hint, indeed, of the meaning of the 
bronze gates and the fate of the Time 
Machine. Vaguely indeed, there 
came a suggestion toward the eco¬ 
nomic problem that had puzzled me. 

“ Here was the new view : Evi¬ 
dently this second species of man 
was subterranean. There were three 
circumstances in particular that 
made me think its rare emergence 
upon the surface was the outcome 
of long subterraneous habit In the 
first place, the bleached appearance, 


THE STRANGE ANIMAL . 


113 


common in most animals that live 
largely in the dark—the white fish 
of the Kentucky caves, for instance. 
Then the large eyes and their ca¬ 
pacity for reflecting the light—a 
common feature of nocturnal eyes, 
witness the owl and the cat. And 
finally the evident confusion in the 
sunlight, the hasty flight toward dark 
shadow, and the carriage of the head 
while in the light, re-enforced the 
idea of an extremely sensitive retina. 

“ Beneath my feet, then, the earth 
must be tunneled out to an enor¬ 
mous extent, and in these caverns 
the new race lived. The presence of 
ventilating shafts and wells all along 
the hill slopes—everywhere, in fact, 
except along the river valley—showed 
how universally the ramifications of 
the underworld extended. 

“ And it was natural to assume that 
it was in the underworld that the 
necessary work of the overworld was 
performed. This was so plausible 
that I accepted it unhesitatingly. 


THE TIME MACHINE. 


i H 

From that I went on to assume how 
the splitting of the human species 
came about. I dare say you will an¬ 
ticipate what shape my theory took, 
though I soon felt it was still short 
of the truth of the case. 

“ But at first, starting from the 
problems of our own age, it seemed 
as clear as daylight to me that the 
gradual widening of the present 
merely temporary and social differ¬ 
ence of the capitalist from the 
laborer was the key to the explana¬ 
tion. No doubt it will seem gro¬ 
tesque enough to you and wildly in¬ 
credible, and yet even now there are 
circumstances that point in the way 
things have gone. There is a ten¬ 
dency plainly enough to utilize 
underground space for the less orna¬ 
mental purposes of civilization; 
there is the Metropolitan Railway in 
London, for instance, and all these 
new electric railways ; there are sub¬ 
ways, and underground workrooms, 
restaurants, and so forth. Evidently, 


THE STRANGE ANIMAL. 11 $ 

I thought, this tendency had in¬ 
creased until industry had gradually 
lost sight of the day, going into 
larger and larger underground fac¬ 
tories, in which the workers would 
spend an increasing amount of their 
time. Even now, an East End 
worker lives in such artificial condi¬ 
tions as practically to be cut off from 
the natural surface of the earth and 
the clear sky altogether. 

“ Then again, the exclusive ten¬ 
dency of richer people, due, no 
doubt, to the increasing refinement 
of their education and the widening 
gulf between them and the rude vio¬ 
lence of the poor, is already leading 
to the closing of considerable por¬ 
tions of the surface of the country 
against these latter. About London, 
for instance, perhaps half the prettier 
country is shut up from such intru¬ 
sion. And the same widening gulf, 
due to the length and expense of the 
higher educational process and the 
increased facilities for, and tempta- 


Il6 


THE TIME MACH I HE. 


tion toward, forming refined habits 
among the rich, will make that fre¬ 
quent exchange between class and 
class, that promotion and inter¬ 
marriage which at present retards the 
splitting of our species along the 
lines of social stratification, less and 
less frequent. 

“ So, in the end, you would have 
above ground the Haves, pursuing 
health, comfort, and beauty, and 
below ground the Have-nots; the 
workers, getting continually adapted 
to their labor. No doubt, once they 
were below ground, considerable 
rents would be charged for the ven¬ 
tilation of their caverns. Workers 
who struck work would starve or be 
suffocated for arrears of ventilator 
rent ; workers who were so consti¬ 
tuted as to be miserable and rebel¬ 
lious would die. In the end, if the 
balance was held permanent, the 
survivors would become as well 
adapted to the conditions of their 
subterranean life as the overworld 


THE STRANGE ANIMAL. 117 

people were to theirs, and as happy 
in their way. It seemed to me that 
the refined beauty of the overworld, 
and the etiolated pallor of the lower, 
followed naturally enough. 

“ The great triumph of humanity I 
had dreamed of now took a different 
shape in my mind. It had been no 
triumph of universal education and 
general co-operation, such as I had 
imagined at the first. Instead, I saw 
a real aristocracy, armed with a per¬ 
fected science and working out to a 
logical conclusion the industrial sys¬ 
tem of to-day. The triumph of the 
overworld humanity had not been 
simply a triumph over nature, but a 
triumph over nature and their fellow- 
men. 

“I must warn you this was my 
theory at the time. I had no con¬ 
venient Cicerone on the pattern of 
the Utopian books. My explanation 
may be absolutely wrong. I still 
think it the most plausible one. But 
even on this supposition the balanced 


Il8 THE TIME MACHINE. 

civilization that was at last attained 
must have long since passed its 
zenith, and was now far gone in de¬ 
cay. The too perfect security of 
the overworld had led these to a 
slow movement of degeneration at 
last—to a general dwindling of size, 
strength, and intelligence. That I 
already saw clearly enough, but what 
had happened to the lower world I 
did not yet suspect. Yet from what 
I had seen of the Morlocks,—that, by 
the bye, was the name by which these 
creatures were called,—I could im¬ 
agine the modification of the human 
type was far more profound in the 
underworld than among the Eloi, the 
beautiful races that I already knew. 

“ Then came some troublesome 
doubts. Why had the Morlocks 
taken my Time Machine ? For I 
felt sure these underpeople had taken 
it. Why, too, if the Eloi were 
masters, could they not restore the 
thing to me ? And why were the 
Eloi so afraid of the dark ? 


THE STRANGE ANIMAL. II 9 

“ I determined, as I have said, to 
question Weena about this under¬ 
world, but here again I was disap¬ 
pointed. At first she would not 
understand my questions, and then 
she refused to answer. She shivered 
as though the topic was unendurable. 
And when I pressed her, perhaps a 
little harshly, she burst into tears. 

“ They were the only tears I ever 
saw in that future age, except my 
own. When I saw them I ceased 
abruptly to trouble about the Mor- 
locks, and was only concerned in 
driving these signs of her human in¬ 
heritance out of her eyes again. And 
presently she was smiling and clap¬ 
ping her hands while I solemnly burnt 
a match. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

Zhc dfcorlocftSo 

T may seem odd to you, but 
it was two days before I 
could follow up the clew of 
these Morlocks in what was mani¬ 
festly the proper way, and descend 
into the well. I felt a peculiar shrink¬ 
ing from their pallid bodies. They 
were just the half-bleached color of 
the worms and things one sees pre¬ 
served in spirit in a zoological 
museum. And they were cold to the 
touch. Probably my shrinking was 
largely due to the sympathetic influ¬ 
ence of the Eloi, whose disgust of the 
Morlocks I now began to appreciate. 

“ The next night I did not sleep very 
well. Possibly my health was a little 
disordered. I was oppressed with 
doubt and perplexity. Once or twice 



120 




THE MORLOCKS. 


121 


I bad a feeling of intense fear for 
which I could perceive no definite 
reason. I remember creeping noise- 
lessly into the great hall where the 
little people were sleeping in the 
moonlight—that night it was that 
Weena was among them—and feel¬ 
ing reassured by their presence. It 
occurred to me even then that when 
in the course of a few days the moon 
passed through its last quarter and 
the nights became dark, the appear¬ 
ance of these unpleasant creatures 
from below, these whitened Lemurs, 
these new vermin that had replaced 
the old, might be more abundant. 

“On both these days I had the rest¬ 
less feeling of one who shirks an in¬ 
evitable duty. I felt assured that the 
Time Machine was only to be re¬ 
covered by boldly penetrating these 
subterranean mysteries. Yet I could 
not face it. If I had only had a 
companion it would have been dif¬ 
ferent. But I was so horribly alone, 
and even to clamber down into 


122 


THE TIME MACHINE. 


the darkness of the well appalled 
me. 

“ I don't know if you will under- 
stand my feeling, but I never felt 
quite safe at my back. 

“ It was this restless feeling, per¬ 
haps, that drove me further than I had 
hitherto gone in my exploring expedi¬ 
tions. Going to the southwestward 
toward the rising country that is now 
called Combe Wood, I observed far 
off, in the direction of nineteenth 
century Banstead, a vast green pile, 
of a different character from any I 
had hitherto seen. It was larger 
than even the largest of the palaces 
or ruins I knew, and the fapade ap¬ 
peared to me Oriental in its character. 
The face of it had the luster as well 
as the pale green tint, a kind of bluish 
green, of a certain type of Chinese 
porcelain. The difference in appear¬ 
ance in the building suggested a dif¬ 
ference in its use. I was minded to 
push on and explore it. But the day 
was growing late and I had come 


THE MORLOCKS. 


123 


upon the sight of the place after a 
long and tiring circuit. I resolved 
to postpone this examination for the 
following day, and returned to the 
welcome and caresses of little Weena. 

“But the next morning I was in a 
mood of remorse for my hesitation in 
descending the well and facing the 
Morlocks in their caverns. I per¬ 
ceived my curiosity regarding this 
great pile of Green Porcelain was a 
mere self-deception to shirk the ex¬ 
perience I dreaded by another day. 
I resolved I would make the descent 
without further waste of time, and 
started out in the early morning to¬ 
ward a well near the ruins of granite 
and aluminum. 

“Little Weena ran by my side. She 
followed me to the well dancing, but 
when she saw me lean over the mouth 
and look downward, she seemed 
strangely disconcerted. 

“ * Good-by, little Weena,* said I, 
kissing her, and then putting her 
down I began to feel over the parapet 


124 


THE TIME MACHINE . 


for the climbing hooks—rather has¬ 
tily, for I feared my courage might 
leak away. 

“ At first Weena watched me in 
amazement, and then she gave a most 
piteous cry, and running to me be¬ 
gan to pull at me with her little 
hands. I think her opposition nerved 
me rather to proceed. I shook her 
off, perhaps a little roughly, and in 
another moment I was in the throat 
of the well. 

“ I saw her agonized face over the 
parapet, and smiled to reassure her. 
Then I had to look down at the un¬ 
stable hooks by which I hung. 

“ I had to clamber down a shaft of 
perhaps two hundred yards. The 
descent was effected by means of me¬ 
tallic bars projecting from the sides 
of the well, and since they were 
adapted to the needs of a creature much 
smaller and lighter than myself, I 
was speedily cramped and fatigued 
by the descent. And not simply 
fatigued. My weight suddenly bent 


THE MORLOCKS. 


125 


one of the hooks and almost swung 
me off it down into the blackness 
beneath. 

“ For a moment I hung by one hand, 
and after that experience I did not 
dare to rest again, and though my 
arms and back were presently acutely 
painful, I continued to clamber with 
as quick a motion as possible down 
the sheer descent. Glancing upward 
I saw the aperture, a mere small blue 
disk above me, in which a star was 
visible, and little Weena’s head ap¬ 
peared as a round black projection. 
The thudding sound of some machine 
below me grew louder and more 
oppressive. Everything save that 
minute circle above was profoundly 
dark. When I looked up again 
Weena had disappeared. 

“ I was in an agony of discomfort. 
I had some thought of trying to go 
up the shaft again, and leave the 
underworld alone. But while I 
turned this over in my mind I con¬ 
tinued to descend. 


126 


THE TIME MACHINE . 


ts It was with intense relief that I 
saw dimly coming up a foot to the 
right of me, a slender loophole in the 
wall of the shaft, and swinging myself 
in, found it was the aperture of a 
narrow horizontal tunnel in which I 
could lie down and rest. 

“ It was not too soon. My arms 
ached, my back was cramped, and I 
was trembling with the prolonged 
fear of falling. Besides this, the un¬ 
broken darkness had had a distress¬ 
ing effect upon my eyes. The air was 
full of the throbbing and hum of the 
machinery that pumped the air down 
the shaft. 

“ I do not know how long I lay in 
that tunnel. I was roused by a soft 
hand touching my face. Starting up 
in the darkness, I snatched at my 
matches and hastily striking one saw 
three grotesque, white creatures, simi¬ 
lar to the one I had seen above 
ground in the ruin, hastily retreating 
before the light. Living as they did 


THE MORLOCKS. 


127 


in what appeared to me impenetrable 
darkness, their eyes were abnormally 
large and sensitive, just as are the eyes 
of the abyssmal fishes or of any purely 
nocturnal creatures, and they re¬ 
flected the light in the same way. I 
have no doubt they could see me in 
that rayless obscurity, and they did 
not seem to have any fear of me 
apart from the light. But so soon as 
I struck a match in order to see them, 
they fled incontinently, vanishing up 
dark gutters and tunnels from which 
their eyes glared at me in the strangest 
fashion. 

“ I tried to call to them, but what 
language they had was apparently 
a different one from that of the over¬ 
world people. So that I was needs 
left to my own unaided exploration. 
The thought of flight rather than ex¬ 
ploration was even at that time in 
my mind. 

“ ‘ You are in for it now/ said I to 
myself, and went on. 

il Feeling my way along this tunnel 


128 


THE TIME MACHINE . 


of mine, the confused noise of 
machinery grew louder, and presently 
the wails fell away from me and I 
came to a large open space, and strik¬ 
ing another match saw I had en¬ 
tered a vast arched cavern extending 
into darkness, at last, beyond the 
range of my light. 

“ The view I had of this cavern was 
as much as one could see in the burn¬ 
ing of a match. Necessarily my 
memory of it is very vague. Great 
shapes like big machines rose out of 
the dim and threw grotesque black 
shadows, in which the spectral Mor- 
• locks sheltered from the glare. The 
place, by the bye, was very stuffy and 
oppressive, and the faint halitus of 
freshly shed blood was in the air. 
Some way down the central vista 
was a little table of white metal upon 
which a meal seemed to be spread. 
The Morlocks at any rate were car¬ 
nivorous. Even at the time I re¬ 
member thinking what large animal 
could have survived to furnish the 


THE MORLOCKS. 


129 


red joint I saw. It was all very in¬ 
distinct, the heavy smell, the big un¬ 
meaning shapes, the white figures 
lurking in the shadows, and only 
waiting for the darkness to come at 
me again. Then the match burned 
down and stung my fingers and fell, 
a wriggling red spot in the black. 

“ I have thought since how particu¬ 
larly ill equipped I was. When I 
had started with the Time Machine I 
had started with the absurd assump¬ 
tion that the men of the future would 
certainly be infinitely in front of us 
in all their appliances. I had come 
without arms, without medicine, with¬ 
out anything to smoke,—at times I 
missed tobacco frightfully,—even 
without enough matches. If I had 
only thought of a kodak ! I could 
have flashed that glimpse of the un¬ 
derworld in a second and examined 
it at leisure. But as it was, I stood 
there with only the weapons and 
powers that Nature had endowed me 
with—hands, feet, and teeth—except 


130 


THE TIME MACHINE. 


four safety matches that still re¬ 
mained to me. 

“ I was afraid to push my way in 
among all this machinery in the dark, 
and it was only with my last glimpse 
of light I discovered that my store of 
matches had run low. It had never 
occurred to me until that moment 
that there was any need to economize 
them, and I had wasted almost half 
of the box in astonishing the above¬ 
ground people, to whom fire was a 
novelty. As I say, I had four left. 

“ Then while I stood in the dark a 
hand touched mine ; then some lank 
fingers came feeling over my face. 
I was sensible of a dull, unpleasant 
odor. I fancy I detected the 
breathing of a number of those little 
beings about me. I felt the box of 
matches in my hand being gently dis¬ 
engaged, and other hands behind me 
plucking at my clothing. 

“ The sense of these unseen crea¬ 
tures examining me was indescribably 
unpleasant. The sudden realization 


THE MORLOCKS. 


131 

of my ignorance of their ways of think¬ 
ing and possible actions came home 
to me very vividly in the darkness. 
I shouted at them as loudly as I 
could. They started away from me, 
and then I could feel them approach¬ 
ing me again. They clutched at me 
more boldly, whispering odd sounds 
to each other. I shivered violently 
and shouted again, rather discord¬ 
antly. This time they were not so 
seriously alarmed and made a queer 
laughing noise as they came toward 
me again. 

“ I will confess I was horribly 
frightened. I determined to strike 
another match and escape under its 
glare. Eking it out with a scrap of 
paper from my pocket, I made good 
my retreat to the narrow tunnel 
But hardly had I entered this when 
my light was blown out, and I could 
hear them in the blackness rustling 
like wind among leaves and pattering 
like the rain, as they hurried after me- 

“ In a moment I was clutched by 


132 THE TIME MACHINE. 

several hands again, and there was 
no mistake now that they were trying 
to draw me back. I struck another 
light and waved it in their dazzled 
faces. You can scarcely imagine 
how nauseatingly inhuman those pale, 
chinless faces and great lidless, 
pinkish-gray eyes seemed, as they 
stared stupidly, evidently blinded by 
the light. 

‘‘So I gained time and retreated 
again, and when my second match 
had ended struck my third. That 
had almost burned through as I 
reached the opening of the tunnel 
upon the well. I lay down on the 
edge, for the throbbing whirl of the 
air-pumping machine below made me 
giddy, and felt sideways for the pro¬ 
jecting hooks. As I did so my feet 
were grasped from behind and I was 
violently tugged backward. I lit my 
last match—and it incontinently 
went out. But I had my hand on 
the climbing bars now, and kicking 
violently disengaged myself from the 


THE MORLOCKS. 


133 


clutches of the Morlocks, and was 
speedily clambering up the shaft 
again, 

‘‘Theyremained peering and blink¬ 
ing up the shaft, except one little 
wretch who followed me for some 
way, and indeed well-nigh captured 
my boot as a trophy. 

“ That upward climb seemed unend¬ 
ing. While I still had the last twenty 
or thirty feet of it above me, a deadly 
nausea came upon me. I had the 
greatest difficulty in keeping my hold. 
The last few yards was a frightful 
struggle against this faintness. 
Several times my head swam and I 
felt all the sensations of falling. 

“ At last I got over the well mouth 
somehow and staggered out of the 
ruin into the blinding sunlight. I fell 
upon my face. Even the soil seemed 
sweet and clean. 

M Then I remember Weena kissing 
my hands and ears, and the voices of 
others of the Eloi. Then probably I 
was insensible for a time. 


CHAPTER IX. 

Mben tbe iFUgbt Came. 

r , indeed, I seemed to be 
a worse case than before, 
itherto, except during my 
night’s anguish at the loss of the 
Time Machine, I had felt a sustain¬ 
ing hope of ultimate escape, but my 
hope was staggered by these new 
discoveries. Hitherto, I had merely 
thought myself impeded by the child¬ 
ish simplicity of the little people and 
by some unknown forces which I had 
only to understand in order to over¬ 
come. But there was an altogether 
new element in the sickening quality 
of the Morlocks, something inhuman 
and malign. Instinctively I loathed 
them. Before, I had felt as a man 
might feel who had fallen into a pit; 
my concern was with the pit and 



134 





WHEN THE NIGHT CAME. 135 

how to get out again. But now I 
felt like a beast in a trap, whose 
enemy would presently come, 

“ The enemy I dreaded may sur¬ 
prise you. It was the darkness of the 
new moon. Weena had put this into 
my head by some, at first, incom¬ 
prehensible remarks about the Dark 
Nights. It was not now such a very 
difficult problem to guess what the 
coming Dark Nights might mean. 
The moon was on the wane ; each 
night there was a longer interval of 
darkness. And I now understood, 
to some slight degree, at least, the 
reason of the fear of the little upper- 
world people for the dark. I won¬ 
dered vaguely what foul villany it 
might be that the Morlocks did 
under the darkness of the new moon. 

“ Whatever the origin of the exist¬ 
ing conditions, I felt pretty sure now 
that my second hypothesis was all 
wrong. The upperworld people might 
once have been the favored aristoc¬ 
racy of the world, and the Morlocks 


1 36 THE time machine. 

their mechanical servants, but that 
state of affairs had passed away long 
since. The two species that had re¬ 
sulted from the evolution of man were 
sliding down toward, or had already 
arrived at, an altogether new relation¬ 
ship. The Eloi, like the Carlovingian 
kings, had decayed to a mere beauti¬ 
ful futility. They still possessed the 
earth on sufferance, since the Mor- 
locks, subterranean for innumerable 
generations, had come at last to find 
the daylit surface unendurable. And 
the Morlocks made their garments, 
I inferred, and maintained them in 
their habitual need, perhaps through 
the survival of an old habit of ser¬ 
vice. They did it, as a standing 
horse paws with his foot, or as a man 
enjoys killing animals in sport—be¬ 
cause ancient and departed necessi¬ 
ties had impressed it on the organism. 
But clearly the old order was already 
in part reversed. The Nemesis of 
the delicate ones was creeping on 
apace. Ages ago, thousands of 


WHEN THE NIGHT CAME. 137 

generations ago, man had thrust his 
brother man out of the ease and sun¬ 
light of life. And now that brother 
was coming back—changed. Already 
the Eloi had begun to learn one old 
lesson anew. They were becoming 
acquainted again with Fear. 

“Then suddenly came into my 
head the memory of the meat I had 
seen in the underworld. It seemed 
odd how this memory floated into my 
mind, not stirred up, as it were, by 
the current of my meditations, but 
coming in almost like a question 
from outside. I tried to recall the 
form of it. I had a vague sense of 
something familiar, but at that time 
I could riot tell what it was. 

“ Still, however helpless the little 
people might be in the presence of 
their mysterious Fear, I was differ¬ 
ently constituted. I came out of 
this age of ours, this ripe prime of 
the human race, when fear does not 
paralyze and mystery has lost its 
terrors. I at least would defend 


138 THE TIME MACHINE . 

myself. Without further delay I de¬ 
termined to make myself arms and 
a fastness where I might sleep with 
some security. From that refuge as 
a base I could face the strange world 
with some confidence again, a confi¬ 
dence I had lost now that I realized 
to what uncanny creatures I nightly 
lay exposed. I felt I could never 
sleep again until my bed was secure 
from them. I shuddered with horror 
to think how they must already have 
examined me during my sleep. 

“ I wandered during the afternoon 
along the valley of the Thames, but 
found nothing that commended itself 
to my mind as a sufficiently inacces¬ 
sible retiring place. All the build¬ 
ings and trees seemed easily practi¬ 
cable to such dexterous climbers as 
the Morlocks—to judge by their 
wells—must be. Then the tall pin¬ 
nacles of the Palace of Green Porce¬ 
lain, and the polished gleam of its 
walls, came back to my memory, and 
in the evening, taking Weena like a 


WHEN THE NIGHT CAME. 139 

child upon my shoulder, I went up 
the hills toward the southwest. 

" Now the distance I had reckoned 
was seven or eight miles, but it must 
have been nearer eighteen. I had 
first seen the Palace on a moist after¬ 
noon when distances are deceptively 
diminished. In addition, the heel of 
one of my shoes was loose, and a nail 
was working through the sole,—they 
were comfortable old shoes I wear 
about indoors,—so that I was lame. 
It was already long past sunset before 
I came in sight of the Palace, stand¬ 
ing out in black silhouette against the 
pale yellow of the sky„ 

“ Weena had been hugely delighted 
when first I carried her, but after a 
time she desired me to let her down 
and ran along by the side of me, oc¬ 
casionally darting off on either hand 
to pick flowers to stick in my pockets. 
My pockets had always puzzled 
Weena, but at the last she had con¬ 
cluded they were an eccentric kind 
of vases for floral decoration, At 


140 


THE TIME MACHINE. 


least she utilized them for that pur¬ 
pose. 

“And that reminds me! As I 
changed my jacket I found-” 

( The Time Traveler paused, put his 
hand into his pocket, and silently placed 
two withered flowers, not unlike very 
large white mallows, upon the little 
table. Then he resumed his narra¬ 
tive.) 

“ As the hush of evening crept over 
the world and we proceeded over the 
hill-crest toward Wimbledon, Weena 
became tired and wanted to return 
to the house of gray stone. But I 
pointed out the distant pinnacles of 
the Palace of Green Porcelain to her, 
and contrived to make her under¬ 
stand that we were seeking a refuge 
there from her Fear. 

“You know that great pause that 
comes upon things before the dusk. 
Even the breeze stops in the trees. 
There is to me always an air of ex¬ 
pectation about that evening stillness. 
The sky was clear, remote, and empty. 


WHEN THE NIGHT CAME. I4I 


save for a few horizontal bars far 
down in the sunset. 

“ That night the expectation took 
the color of my fears. In the dark¬ 
ling calm my senses seemed preter- 
naturally sharpened. I fancied I 
could even feel the hollowness of the 
ground beneath my feet, could indeed 
almost see through it, the Morlocks in 
their ant-hill going hither and thither 
and waiting for the dark. In this 
excited state I fancied that they 
would take my invasion of their bur¬ 
rows as a declaration of war. And 
why had they taken my Time Ma¬ 
chine ? 

“ So we went on in the quiet, and 
the twilight deepened into night. 
The clear blue of the distance faded 
and one star after another came out. 
The ground grew dim and the trees 
black. Weena’s fears and her fatigue 
grew upon her. I took her in my 
arms and talked to her and caressed 
her. Then as the darkness grew 
profounder she put her arms round 


142 


THE TIME MACHINE . 


my neck, and closing her eyes tightly- 
pressed her face against my shoulder. 

“ We went down a long slope into 
a valley, and there in the dimness I 
almost walked into a little river. This 
I waded, and went up the opposite 
side of the valley, past a number of 
sleeping houses, and by a statue that 
appeared to me in the indistinct light 
to represent a faun, or some such fig 
ure, minus the head. Here, too, were 
acacias. So far, I had seen nothing 
of the Morlocks, but it was yet early 
in the night, and the darker hours 
before the old moon rose were still 
to come. 

“ From the brow of the next hill I 
saw a thick wood spreading wide and 
black before me. At this I hesitated. 
I could see no end to it either to the 
right or to the left. Feeling tired,— 
my feet, in particular, were very sore, 
—I carefully lowered Weena from 
my shoulder as I halted, and sat 
down upon the turf. I could no 
longer see the Palace of Green Por- 


WHEN THE NIGHT CAME. 143 

celain, and I was in doubt of my 
direction. 

“ I looked into the thickness of the 
wood, and thought of what it might 
hide. Under that dense tangle of 
branches one would be out of sight 
of the stars. Even were there no 
other lurking danger there,—a danger 
I did not care to let my imagination 
loose upon,—there would still be all 
the roots to stumble over, and the 
tree boles to strike myself against. I 
was very tired, too, after the excite¬ 
ments of the day, and I decided that 
I would not face it, but would pass 
the night upon the open hill. 

“ Weena, I was glad to discover, 
was fast asleep. I carefully wrapped 
her in my jacket, and sat down be¬ 
side her to wait for the moonrise. 
The hillside upon which I sat was 
quiet and deserted, but from the 
black of the wood there came now 
and then a stir of living things. 

“ Above me shone the stars, for 
the night was clear. I felt a certain 


144 


THE TIME MACHINE. 


sense of friendly comfort in their 
twinkling. All the old constellations 
had gone from the sky, however, for 
that slow movement that is imper¬ 
ceptible in a dozen human lifetimes, 
had long ago rearranged them in un¬ 
familiar groupings. But the Milky 
Way, it seemed to me, was still the 
same tattered streamer of star dust 
as of yore. Southward—as I judged 
it—was a very bright red star that 
was new to me. It was even more 
splendid than our own green Sirius. 
Amid all these scintillating points of 
light, one planet shone kindly and 
steadily like the face of an old 
friend. 

“ Looking at these stars suddenly 
dwarfed my own troubles and all the 
gravities of terrestrial life. I thought 
of their unfathomable distance, and 
the slow, inevitable drift of their 
movements out of the unknown past 
into the unknown future. I thought 
of the great precessional cycle that 
the pole of the earth describes in the 


WHEN THE NIGHT CAME. 145 

heavens. Only forty times had that 
silent revolution occurred during all 
the years I had traversed. And dur¬ 
ing those few revolutions, all the 
activity, all the traditions, the care¬ 
fully planned organizations, the na¬ 
tions, languages, literature, aspira¬ 
tions, even the mere memory of man 
as I knew man, had been swept out 
of existence. Instead were these 
frail creatures who had forgotten 
their high ancestry, and the white 
animals of which I went in fear. 
Then I thought of the great fear 
there was between these two species, 
and for the first time, with a sudden 
shiver, came the clear knowledge of 
what the meat I had seen might be. 
Yet it was too horrible ! I looked at 
little Weena sleeping beside me, her 
face white and starlike under the 
stars, and forthwith dismissed the 
thought from my mind. 

“ Through that long night I kept 
my maid off the Morlocks as well as 
I could, and whiled away the time by 


146 


THE TIME MACHINE . 


trying to fancy I could find traces of 
the old constellations among the new 
confusion. The sky kept very clear, 
except a hazy cloud or so. No doubt 
I dozed at times. Then, as my vigil 
wore on, came a faintness in the east¬ 
ward sky like the reflection of some 
colorless fire, and the old moon rose 
thin and peaked and white. And 
close behind and overtaking it and 
overflowing it the dawn came, pale 
at first and then growing pink and 
warm. 

“ No Morlocks had approached us. 
Jndeed, I had seen none upon the 
hill that night. And in the confi¬ 
dence of renewed day it almost 
seemed to me that my fear had been 
unreasonable. I stood up, and found 
my foot with the loose heel swollen 
at the ankle and painful under the 
heel. I sat down again, took off my 
shoes, and flung them away. 

“ I awakened Weena, and forthwith 
we went down into the wood, now 
green and pleasant, instead of black 


WHEN THE NIGHT CAME. 147 

and forbidding. And there we found 
some fruit wherewith to break our 
fast. We soon met others of the 
dainty ones, laughing and dancing in 
the sunlight, as though there was no 
such thing in nature as the night. 

“ Then I thought once more of the 
meat that I had seen. I felt assured 
now of what it was, and, from the 
bottom of my heart, I pitied this last 
feeble rill from the great flood of 
humanity. Clearly, somewhere in 
the long ages of human decay, the 
food of the Morlocks had run short. 
Possibly they had lived on rats and 
suchlike vermin. Even now, man is 
far less discriminating and exclusive 
in his food than he was, far less than 
any monkey. His prejudice against 
human flesh is no deep-seated in¬ 
stinct. And so these inhuman sons 
of men- 

“ I tried to look at the thing in a 
scientific spirit. After all, these were 
scarcely to be counted human beings ; 
less human they were and more re- 



148 


THE TIME MACHINE. 


mote than our cannibal ancestors 
of three or four thousand years ago. 
And the minds that would have made 
this state torment were gone. Why 
should I trouble ? The Eloi were 
mere fatted cattle, which the antlike 
Morlocks preserved and preyed upon, 
probably saw to the breeding of. 
And there was Weena dancing by 
my side ! 

“ Then I tried to preserve myself 
from the horror that was coming 
upon me by regarding it as a rigor¬ 
ous punishment of human selfish¬ 
ness ; man had been content to live 
in ease and delight upon the labors 
of his fellow-men ; had taken Neces¬ 
sity as his watchword and excuse, 
and in fullness of time Necessity had 
come home to him. I tried even a 
Carlyle-like scorn of these wretched 
aristocrats in decline. 

“ But this attitude of mind was im¬ 
possible. However great their intel¬ 
lectual degradation, the Eloi had 
kept too much of the human form 


WHEN THE NIGHT CAME. 149 

not to claim my sympathy, and to 
make me perforce a participant in 
their degradation and their Fear. 

“ I had at this time very vague 
ideas of what course I should pursue. 
My first idea was to secure some 
safe place of refuge for Weena and 
myself, and to make myself such 
arms of metal or stone as I could 
contrive. That necessity was im¬ 
mediate. In the next place, I hoped 
to procure some means of fire, so 
that I should have the weapon of a 
torch at hand, for nothing, I knew, 
would be more efficient against these 
Morlocks. Then I wanted to ar¬ 
range some contrivance to break 
open the doors of bronze under the 
white sphinx. I had in mind a bat¬ 
tering ram. I had a persuasion that 
if I could enter these doors and carry 
a blaze of light before me, I should 
discover the Time Machine and 
escape. I could not imagine the 
Morlocks were powerful enough to 
remove it far. Weena I had re* 


150 


THE TIME MACHINE. 


solved to bring with me to our own 
Time. 

“Turning such schemes over in 
my mind, I pursued our way toward 
the building which my fancy had 
chosen as our dwelling-place. 


CHAPTER X. 

Gbe palace of Green porcelain* 


HIS Palace of Green Porce¬ 
lain, when we approached 
it about noon, was, I found, 
deserted and falling into ruin. Only 
ragged vestiges of glass remained in 
its windows, and great sheets of the 
green facing had fallen away in 
places from the corroded metallic 
framework. It lay very high upon a 
turfy down, and, looking northeast¬ 
ward before I entered it, I was sur¬ 
prised to see a large estuary, or an 
arm of the sea, where I judged 
Wandsworth and Battersea must 
once have been. I thought then— 
though I never followed the thought 
up—of what might have happened, 
or might be happening, to the living 
things in the sea. 



151 




152 


THE TIME MACHINE. 


“ The material of the Palace 
proved, on examination, to be in¬ 
deed porcelain, and above the face 
of it I saw an inscription in some 
unknown characters. I thought, 
rather foolishly, that Weena might 
help me to interpret this, but I only 
learned that the bare idea of writing 
had never entered her head. She 
always seemed to me, I fancy, more 
human than she was, perhaps be¬ 
cause her affection was so human. 

“ Within the big valves of the 
door—which were open and broken— 
we found, instead of the customary 
hall, a long gallery lit by many side 
windows. Even at the first glance I 
was reminded of a museum. The 
tiled floor was thick with dust, and a 
remarkable array of miscellaneous 
objects were shrouded in the same 
gray covering. Clearly, the place 
had been derelict for a very consid¬ 
erable time. 

“ Then I perceived, standing strange 
and guant in the center of the hall, 


PA LA CE OF GREEN FOR CEL A IN. 153 

what was clearly the lower part of the 
skeleton of some huge animal. As I 
approached this I recognized by the 
oblique feet that it was some extinct 
creature after the fashion of the me¬ 
gatherium. The skull and the upper 
bones lay beside it in the thick dust, 
and in one place where rain water 
had dripped through some leak in 
the roof, the skeleton had decayed 
away. Further along the gallery was 
the huge skeleton barrel of a bronto¬ 
saurus. My museum hypothesis was 
confirmed. Going toward the side of 
the gallery I found what appeared to 
be sloping shelves, and clearing away 
the thick dust, I found the old famil¬ 
iar glass cases of our own time. But 
these must have been air-tight to judge 
from the fair preservation of some of 
their contents. 

“ Clearly we stood among the ruins 
of some latter day South Kensington. 
Here apparently was the Palaeonto¬ 
logical Section, and a very splendid 
array of fossils it must have been ; 


154 


THE TIME MACHINE. 


though the inevitable process of 
decay that had been warded off for a 
time, and had, through the extinction 
of bacteria and fungi, lost ninety- 
nine-hundreths of its force, was 
nevertheless, with extreme sureness, 
if with extreme slowness, at work 
again upon all its treasures. Here 
and there I found traces of the little 
people in the shape of rare fossils 
broken to pieces or threaded in 
strings upon reeds. And the cases 
had in some instances been bodily 
removed—by the Morlocks, as I 
judged. 

“ The place was very silent. The 
thick dust deadened our footsteps. 
Weena, who had been rolling a sea 
urchin down the sloping glass of a 
case, presently came, as I stared about 
me, and very quietly took my hand 
and stood beside me. 

“ At first I was so much surprised 
by this ancient monument of an in¬ 
tellectual age that I gave no thought 
to the possibilities it presented me. 


PA LA CE OF GREEN PORCELA IN. 155 

Even my preoccupation about the 
Time Machine and the Morlocks 
receded a little from my mind. The 
curiosity concerning human destiny 
that had led to my time traveling 
was removed. Now, judging from 
the size of the place, this Palace of 
Green Porcelain had a great deal 
more in it than a gallery of palaeon¬ 
tology ; possibly historical galleries, 
it might be even a library. To me, 
at least in my present circumstances, 
these would be vastly more interesting 
than this spectacle of old-time geology 
in decay. 

“ Exploring, I found another short 
gallery running transversely to the 
first. This appeared to be devoted 
to minerals, and the sight of a block 
of sulphur set my mind running on 
gunpowder. But I could find no 
saltpeter ; indeed no nitrates of any 
kind. Doubtless they had deli¬ 
quesced ages ago. Yet the sulphur 
hung in my mind and set up a train 
of thinking. As for the rest of the 


156 THE TIME MACHINE. 

contents of that place, though on the 
whole they were the best preserved 
of all I saw—I had little interest. I 
am no specialist in mineralogy, and I 
soon went on down a very ruinous 
aisle running parallel to the first hall 
I had entered. 

‘‘Apparently this section had*been 
devoted to Natural History, but here 
everything had long since passed out 
of recognition. A few shriveled 
vestiges of what had once been 
stuffed animals, dried-up mummies 
in jars that had once held spirit, a 
brown dust of departed plants, that 
was all. I was sorry for this, because 
I should have been glad to trace the 
patient readjustments by which the 
conquest of animated nature had 
been attained. 

“ From this we come to a gallery of 
simply colossal proportions, but singu¬ 
larly ill lit, and with its floor running 
downward at a slight angle from the 
end at which I entered it. At inter¬ 
vals there hung white globes from 


PAL A CE OF GREEN PORCELAIN. 157 

the ceiling,—many of them cracked 
and smashed,—which suggested that 
originally the place had been artifici¬ 
ally lit. Here I was more in my ele¬ 
ment, for I found rising on either 
side of me the huge bulks of big ma¬ 
chines, all greatly corroded, and many 
broken down, but some still fairly 
complete in all their parts. You 
know I have a certain weakness for 
mechanism, and I was inclined to 
linger among these, the more so since 
for the most part they had the inter¬ 
est of puzzles, and I could make 
only the vaguest guesses of what 
they were for. I fancied if I could 
solve these puzzles I should find 
myself in the possession of powers 
that might be of use against the Mor- 
locks. 

“ Suddenly Weena came very close 
to my side, so suddenly that she 
startled me. 

“Had it not been for her I do 
not think I should have noticed that 
the floor of the gallery sloped at 


158 


THE TIME MACHINE. 


all.* The end I had entered was q vte 
above ground, and was lit by rare 
slit-like windows. As one went down 
the length of the place, the ground 
came up against these windows, un¬ 
til there was at last a pit like the 
‘ area * of a London house, before 
each, and only a narrow line of day¬ 
light at the top. I went slowly along, 
puzzling about the machines, and had 
been too intent upon them to notice 
the gradual diminution of the light, 
until Weena’s increasing apprehen¬ 
sion attracted my attention. 

“ Then I saw that the gallery ran 
down at last into a thick darkness. 
I hesitated about proceeding, and 
then as I looked around me, I saw 
that the dust was here less abundant 
and its surface less even. Further 
away toward the dim, it appeared to 
be broken by a number of small nar¬ 
row footprints. At that my sense of 

* It may be, of course, that the floor did not 
slope, but that the museum was built upon 
the side of the hill.— Editor. 


PAL A CE OF GREEN PORCELA IN. 159 

the immediate presence of the Mor- 
locks revived. I felt that I was wast¬ 
ing my time in my academic exami¬ 
nation of this machinery. I called 
to mind that it was already far ad¬ 
vanced in the afternoon, and that I 
had still no weapon, no refuge, and no 
means of making a fire. And then, 
down in the remote black of the gal¬ 
lery, I heard a peculiar pattering and 
those same odd noises I had heard 
down the well. 

“ I took Weena’s hand. Then 
struck with a sudden idea, I left her, 
and turned to a machine from which 
projected a lever not unlike those in 
a signal box. Clambering upon the 
stand of the machine and grasping 
this lever in my hands, I put all my 
weight upon it sideways. Weena, 
deserted in the central aisle, began 
suddenly to whimper. I had judged 
the strength of the lever pretty cor¬ 
rectly, for it snapped after a minute’s 
strain, and I rejoined Weena with a 
mace in my hand more than sufficient, 


l6o THE TIME MACHINE. 

I judged, for any Morlock skull I 
might encounter. 

“ And I longed very much to kill 
a Morlock or so. Very inhuman, 
you may think, to want to go killing 
one’s own descendants, but it was 
impossible somehow to feel any 
humanity in the things. Only my 
disinclination to leave Weena, and a 
persuasion that if I began to slake 
my thirst for murder my Time Ma¬ 
chine might suffer, restrained me from 
going straight down the gallery and 
killing the brutes I heard there. 

“ Mace in one hand and Weena in 
the other we went out of that gallery 
and into another still larger, which at 
the first glance reminded me of a 
military chapel hung with tattered 
flags. The brown and charred rags 
that hung from the sides of it, I 
presently recognized as the decaying 
vestiges of books. They had long 
since dropped to pieces and every 
semblance of print had left them. 
But here and there were warped and 


PA LA CE OF GREEN PORCELAIN. l6l 

cracked boards and metallic clasps 
that told the tale well enough. 

“ Had I been a literary man I might 
perhaps have moralized upon the 
futility of all ambition, but as it was, 
the thought that struck me with 
keenest force, was the enormous 
waste of labor rather than of hope, to 
which this somber gallery of rotting 
paper testified. At the time I will 
confess, though it seems a petty 
trait now, that I thought chiefly of 
the Philosophical Transactions, and 
my own seventeen papers upon 
physical optics. 

“ Then going up a broad staircase 
we came to what may once have been 
a gallery of technical chemistry. 
And here I had not a little hope of 
discovering something to help me. 
Except at one end where the roof 
had collapsed, this gallery was well 
preserved. I went eagerly to every 
unbroken case. And at last, in one 
of the really air-tight cases, I found a 
box of matches. Very eagerly I 


162 


THE TIME MACHINE. 


tried them. They were perfectly 
good. They were not even damp. 

“ At that discovery I suddenly 
turned to Weena. ‘ Dance ! ’ I cried 
to her in her own tongue. For now 
I had a weapon indeed against the 
horrible creatures we feared. And 
so in that derelict museum, upon the 
thick soft coating of dust, to Weena’s 
huge delight, I solemnly performed 
a sort of composite dance, whistling 
‘ The Land of the Leal' as cheer¬ 
fully as I could. In part it -was a 
modest cancan, in part a step dance, 
in part a skirt dance,—so far as my 
tail coat permitted,—and in part 
original. For naturally I am inven¬ 
tive, as you know. 

“ Now, I still think that for this box 
of matches to have escaped the wear 
of time for immemorial years was a 
strange, and for me, a most fortunate 
thing. Yet oddly enough I found 
here a far more unlikely substance, 
and that was camphor. I found it in 
a sealed jar, that, by chance, I sup- 


PALACE OF GREEN PORCELAIN . 163 

posed had been really hermetically 
sealed. I fancied at first the stuff 
was paraffin wax & and smashed 
the jar accordingly. But the odor 
of camphor was unmistakable. It 
struck me as singularly odd, that 
among the universal decay, this vola¬ 
tile substance had chanced to survive, 
perhaps through many thousand 
years. Is reminded me of a sepia 
painting I had once seen done from 
the ink of a fossil Belemnite that 
must have perished and become 
fossilized millions of years ago. I 
was about to throw this camphor on 
one side, and then remembering that 
it was inflammable and burnt with a 
good bright flame, I put it into my 
pocket. 

“ I found no explosives, however, 
or any means of breaking down the 
bronze doors. As yet my iron crow¬ 
bar was the most hopeful thing I had 
chanced upon. Nevertheless I left 
that gallery greatly elated by my dis¬ 
coveries. 


164 


THE TIME MACHINE . 


“ I cannot tell you the whole story 
of my exploration through that long 
afternoon. It would require a great 
effort of memory to recall it at all in 
the proper order. I remember a long 
gallery containing the rusting stands 
of arms of all ages, and that I hesi¬ 
tated between my crowbar and a 
hatchet or a sword. I could not 
carry both, however, and my bar of 
iron, after all, promised best against 
the bronze gates. There were rusty 
guns, pistols, and rifles here ; most of 
them were masses of rust, but many 
of aluminum, and still fairly sound. 
But any cartridges or powder there 
may have been had rotted into dust. 
One corner I saw was charred and 
shattered ; perhaps, I thought, by an 
explosion among the specimens 
there. In another place was a vast 
array of idols—Polynesian, Mexican, 
Grecian, Phoenician, every country 
on earth, I should think. And here, 
yielding to an irresistible impulse, I 
wrote my name upon the nose of a 


PALACE OF GREEN PORCELAIN. 165 

steatite monster from South America 
that particularly took my fancy. 

“ As the evening drew on my inter¬ 
est waned. I went through gallery 
after gallery, dusty, silent, often ruin¬ 
ous, the exhibits sometimes mere heaps 
of rust and lignite, sometimes fresher. 
In one place I suddenly found my¬ 
self near a model of a tin mine, and 
then by the merest accident I dis¬ 
covered in an air-tight case two dyna¬ 
mite cartridges ; I shouted ‘ Eureka ! * 
and smashed the case joyfully. Then 
came a doubt. I hesitated, and then 
selecting a little side gallery I made 
my essay. I never felt such a bitter 
disappointment as I did then, wait¬ 
ing five, ten, fifteen minutes for the 
explosion that never came. Of 
course the things were dummies, as I 
might have guessed from their pres¬ 
ence there. I really believe had they 
not been so, I should have rushed off 
incontinently there and then, and 
blown sphinx, bronze doors, and, as 
it proved, my chances of finding the 


i 66 


THE TIME MACHINE. 


Time Machine all together into non¬ 
existence. 

“ It was after that, I think, that we 
came to a little open court within 
the palace, turfed and with three 
fruit trees. There it was we rested 
and refreshed ourselves. 

“ Toward sunset I began to con¬ 
sider our position. Night was now 
creeping upon us and my inaccessi¬ 
ble hiding-place was still to be found. 
But that troubled me very little now. 
I had in my possession a thing that 
was perhaps the best of all defenses 
against the Morlocks. I had matches 
again. I also had the camphor in my 
pocket if a blaze were required. It 
seemed to me that the best thing we 
could do would be to pass the night 
in the open again, protected by a fire. 

“ In the morning there was the 
Time Machine to obtain. Toward 
that as yet I had only my iron mace. 
But now with my growing knowledge 
I felt very differently toward the 
bronze doors than I had done 


PALACE OF GREEN PORCELAIN. 167 

hitherto. Up to this I had refrained 
from forcing them, largely because of 
the mystery on the other side. They 
had never impressed me as being 
very strong, and I hoped to find my 
bar of iron not altogether inadequate 
for the work. 


CHAPTER XI. 

Ifn tbe 5>arfene00 of tbe forest 


E emerged from the Palace of 
Green Porcelain while the 
sun was still in part above 
the horizon. I was determined to 
reach the white sphinx early the 
next morning, and I proposed before 
the dusk came to push through the 
woods that had stopped me on the 
previous journey. My plan was to 
go as far as possible that night, and 
then, building a fire about us, to 
sleep under the protection of its 
glare. Accordingly as we went along 
I gathered any sticks or dried grass I 
saw, and presently had my arms full 
of such litter. So loaded, our prog¬ 
ress was slower than I had antici¬ 
pated, and besides, Weena was tired. 
I, too, began to suffer from sleepi- 

x68 






IN THE DA RKNESS OF THE FORES T I69 

ness, and it was fully night before we 
reached the wood. 

“Now, upon the shrubby hill upon 
the edge of this, Weena would have 
stopped, fearing the darkness before 
us. But a singular sense of impend¬ 
ing calamity, that should indeed have 
served me as a warning, drove me 
onward. I had been without sleep 
for the length of a night and two 
days, and I was feverish and irritable. 
I felt sleep coming upon me, and 
with it the Morlocks. 

“While we hesitated I saw among 
the bushes up the slope behind us, 
and dim against the sky, three 
crouching figures. There was scrub 
and long grass all about us, and I 
did not feel safe from their insidious 
approach* The forest, I calculated, 
was rather less than a mile in 
breadth. If we could get through 
it, the hillside beyond was bare, and 
to me it seemed an altogether safer 
resting-place. I thought that with 
my matches and the camphor I could 


170 THE TIME MACHINE . 

contrive to keep my path illuminated 
through the woods. Yet it was evi¬ 
dent that if I was to flourish matches 
with my hands I should have to 
abandon my firewood. So rather 
reluctantly I put this down. 

“Then it came into my head that I 
would amaze our friends behind by 
lighting it. Ultimately I was to dis¬ 
cover the atrocious folly of this pro¬ 
ceeding, but just then it came to my 
mind as an ingenious move for cover¬ 
ing our retreat. 

“I don’t know if you have ever 
thought what a rare thing in the 
absence of man and in a temperate 
climate, flames must be. The sun’s 
heat is rarely strong enough to burn 
even when focussed by dewdrops, as 
is sometimes the case in more tropical 
districts. Lightning may blast and 
blacken, but it rarely gives rise to 
widespread fire. Decaying vegeta¬ 
tion may occasionally smoulder with 
the heat of its fermentation, but this 
again rarely results in flames. Now, 


IN THE DARKNESS OF THE FOREST. 171 

in this decadent age the art of fire- 
making had been altogether forgotten 
on the earth. The red tongues that 
went licking up my heap of wood 
were an altogether new and strange 
thing to Weena. 

“She wanted to run to it and play 
with it. I believe she would have 
cast herself into it had I not re¬ 
strained her. But I caught her up 
and in spite of her struggles plunged 
boldly before me into the wood. 
For a little way the glare of my fire 
lit the path. Looking back presently 
I could see, through the crowded tree 
stems, that from my heap of sticks 
the blaze had spread to some bushes 
adjacent, and a curved line of fire 
was creeping up the grass of the hill. 
I laughed at that. 

“Then I turned toward the dark 
trees before me again. It was very 
black and Weena clung to me con¬ 
vulsively, but there was still, as my 
eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, 
sufficient light for me to avoid blun- 


172 


THE TIME MACHINE. 


dering against the stems. Overhead 
it was simply black, except when 
here and there a gap of remote blue 
sky shone down upon me. I lit 
none of my matches because I had 
no hand free. Upon my left arm I 
carried my little one, in my right hand 
I had the iron bar I had wrenched 
from the machine. 

“For some way I heard nothing 
but the crackling twigs under my feet, 
the faint rustle of the breeze above, 
and my breathing and the throb of 
the blood vessels in my ears. Then I 
seemed to hear a pattering about me. 

“ I pushed on grimly. The patter¬ 
ing became more distinct, and then 
I heard the same queer sounds and 
voices I had heard before in the 
underworld. There were evidently 
several of the Morlocks, and they 
were closing in upon me. 

44 In another minute I felt a tug at 
my coat, then something at my arm. 
Weena shivered violently and became 
quite still. 


IN THE DA RKNESS OF THE FORES T. 173 

“It was time for a match. But to 
get at that I must put her down. I 
did so, and immediately as I fumbled 
with my pocket a struggle began in 
the darkness about my knees, per¬ 
fectly silent on her part and with the 
same peculiar cooing sounds on the 
part of the Morlocks. Soft little 
hands, too, were creeping over my coat 
and back, touching even my neck. 

“The match scratched and fizzed. 
I held it flaring, and immediately the 
white backs of the Morlocks became 
visible as they fled amid the trees. 
I hastily took a lump of camphor 
from my pocket and prepared to 
light it as soon as the match waned. 

“Then I looked at Weena. She 
was lying clutching my feet and 
quite motionless, with her face to the 
ground. With a sudden fright I 
stooped to her. She seemed scarcely 
to breathe. I lit the block of cam¬ 
phor and flung it to the ground, and 
as it spit and flared up and drove 
back the Morlocks and the shadows, 


174 


THE TIME MACHINE . 


I knelt down and lifted up Weena. 
The wood behind seemed full of 
the stir and murmur of a great com¬ 
pany of creatures. 

“Apparently she had fainted. I 
put her carefully upon my shoulder 
and rose to push on, and then came 
a horrible realization. 

“While maneuvering with my 
matches and Weena, I had turned 
myself about several times, and now 
I had not the faintest idea in what 
direction my path lay. For all I 
knew I might be facing back toward 
the Palace of Green Porcelain. 

“I found myself in a cold perspira¬ 
tion. I had to think rapidly what to 
do. I determined to build a fire and 
encamp where we were. I put the 
motionless Weena down upon a turfy 
bole. Very hastily, as my first lump 
of camphor waned, I began collecting 
sticks and leaves 

S4 Here and there out of the dark¬ 
ness round me the eyes of the Mor* 
locks shone like carbuncles. 


IN THE DA RKNESS OF THE FOREST\ I75 

“Presently the camphor flickered 
and went out. I lit a match, and as 
I did so saw two white forms that 
had been approaching Weena dash 
hastily back. One was so blinded 
by the light that he came straight 
for me, and I felt his bones grind 
under the blow of my fist. He gave 
a whoop of dismay, staggered a little 
way, and fell down. 

“I lit another piece of camphor 
and went on gathering my bonfire. 
Presently I noticed how dry was 
some of the foliage above me, for 
since I had arrived on the Time 
Machine, a matter of a week, no rain 
had fallen. So instead of casting 
about among the trees for fallen 
twigs I began leaping up and drag¬ 
ging down branches. Very soon I 
had a choking smoky fire of green 
wood and dry sticks, and could save 
my other lumps of camphor. 

“Then I turned to where Weena lay 
beside my iron mace. I tried what 
I could to revive her, but she lay like 


176 


THE TIME MACHINE. 


one dead. I could not even satisfy 
myself whether or not she breathed. 

“Now the smoke of the fire beat 
over toward me, and it must have 
made me suddenly heavy. More¬ 
over the vapor of camphor was in 
the air. My fire would not want 
replenishing for an hour or so. I 
felt very weary after my exertion and 
sat down. The wood, too, was full 
of a slumberous murmur that I did 
not understand. 

“I seemed merely to nod and open 
my eyes. Then it was all dark 
around me, and the Morlocks had 
their hands upon me. Flinging off 
their clinging fingers I hastily felt in 
my pocket for the match-box, and— 
it had gone! Then they gripped 
and closed with me again. 

“In a moment I knew what had 
happened. I had slept, and my fire 
had gone out, and the bitterness of 
death came over my soul. The 
forest seemed full of the smell of 


IN THE DA RKNESS OF THE FOREST. 177 

burning wood. I was caught by the 
neck, by the hair, by the arms, and 
pulled down. It was indescribably 
horrible in the darkness to feel all 
these soft creatures heaped upon me. 
I felt as if I was in a monstrous 
spider’s web. I was overpowered. 
Down I went. 

“I felt some little teeth nipping 
at my neck. Abruptly I rolled over, 
and as I did so, my hand came against 
my iron lever. Somehow this gave 
me strength for another effort. I 
struggled up, shaking off these human 
rats from me, and then holding the 
bar short, I thrust where I judged 
their faces might be. I could feel 
the succulent giving of flesh and bone 
under my blows, and for a moment 
I was free. 

“The strange exultation that so 
often seems to accompany fighting 
came upon me. I knew that both I 
and Weena were lost, but I deter¬ 
mined to make the Morlocks pay for 
their meat. I stood with my back to 


178 THE TIME MACHINE. 

a tree swinging the iron bar before 
me. The whole wood was full of the 
stir and cries of them. 

“A minute passed. Their voices 
seemed to rise to a higher pitch of 
excitement and their movements be¬ 
came faster. Yet none came within 
reach of me. I stood glaring at the 
blackness. Then suddenly came 
hope. 

“What if the Morlocks had no 
courage? 

“And close on the heels of that 
came a strange thing. The darkness 
seemed to grow luminous. Very 
dimly I began to see the Morlocks 
about me,—three, battered at my feet, 
■—and then I perceived with incred¬ 
ulous surprise that the others were 
running, in an incessant stream, as 
it seemed to me, from behind me, 
and away through the wood in front 
of me. And their backs seemed no 
longer white, but reddish. 

“Then as I stood agape I saw, 
across a gap of starlight between 


IN THE DARKNESS OF THE FOREST. 179 

the branches, a little red spark go 
drifting and vanish. And at that I 
understood the smell of burning 
wood, the slumberous murmur that 
was growing now into a gusty roar¬ 
ing, the red glow, and the flight of 
the Morlocks. 

“Stepping out from behind my 
tree and looking back, I saw through 
the back pillars of the nearer trees 
the flames of the burning forest. 
No] doubt it was my first fire coming 
after me. With that I hastily looked 
round for Weena, but she was gone. 
The hissing and crackling behind me, 
the explosive thud as each fresh tree 
burst into flame, left little time for 
reflection. With my iron bar still in 
hand I followed in the path of the 
Morlocks. 

“It was a close race. Once the 
flames crept forward so swiftly on my 
right as I ran, that I was outflanked 
and had to strike off to the left. But 
at last I emerged upon a small open 
place, and as I did so, a Morlock 


180 the time machine. 

came blundering toward me and 
passed me, and went on straight 
into the fire. 

“And now I was to see the most 
weird and horrible scene, I think, 
of all that I beheld in that future 
age. 

“This whole space was as bright as 
day with the reflection of the fire. 
In the center was a small hillock or 
tumulus surmounted by a scorched 
hawthorn. Beyond this hill was 
another arm of the burning forest 
from which yellow tongues were 
already writhing, and completely 
encircling the space with a fence of 
fire. Upon the hillside were per¬ 
haps thirty or forty Morlocks, dazzled 
by the light and heat of the fire, 
which was now very bright and hot, 
blundering hither and thither against 
each other in their bewilderment. 
At first I did not realize their blind¬ 
ness, and struck furiously at them 
with my bar in a frenzy of fear as 
they approached me, killing one and 


IN THE DA RKNESS OF THE FORES T, 181 

crippling several others. But when 
I had watched the gestures of one of 
them groping under the hawthorn 
against the red sky, and heard the 
moans to which they all gave vent, I 
was assured of their absolute help¬ 
lessness and refrained from striking 
any of them again. Yet every now 
and then one would come straight 
toward me, setting loose a quivering 
horror, that made me quick to elude 
him. At one time the flames died 
down somewhat, and I feared these 
foul creatures would presently be 
able to see me, and I was even think¬ 
ing of beginning the fight by kill¬ 
ing some of them before this should 
happen, but the fire burst out again 
brightly and I stayed my hand. I 
walked about the hill among them 
and avoiding them, looking for some 
trace of Weena, but I found nothing. 

“At last I sat down upon the sum¬ 
mit of the hillock and watched this 
strange incredible company of the 
blind, groping to and fro and mak- 


182 


THE TIME MACHINE. 


ing uncanny noises to one another, 
as the glare of the fire beat upon 
them. The coiling uprush of smoke 
streamed across the sky, and through 
the rare tatters of that red canopy, 
remote as though they belonged to 
another universe, shone the little 
stars. Two or three Morlocks came 
blundering into me and I drove them 
off, trembling myself as I did so, 
with blows of my fists. For the most 
of that night I was persuaded it 
was a nightmare. I bit myself and 
screamed aloud in a passionate de¬ 
sire to awake. I beat on the ground 
with my hands, and got up, and sat 
down again, and wandered here and 
there, and again sat down on the 
crest of the hill. Then I would fall 
to rubbing my eyes and calling upon 
God to let me awake. Thrice I saw 
Morlocks put their heads down in a 
kind of agony and rush into the 
flames. But at last, above the sub¬ 
siding red of the fire, above the 
streaming masses of black smoke 


IN THE DARKNESS OF THE FOREST. 183 

and the whitening and blackening 
tree stumps, and the diminishing 
number of these dim creatures, came 
the white light of the day. 

“I searched again over the open 
space for some traces of Weena, but 
could find none. I had half feared 
to discover her mangled remains, but 
clearly they had left her poor little 
body in the forest. I cannot de¬ 
scribe how it relieved me to think 
that it had escaped the awful fate 
to which it seemed destined. As I 
thought of that I was almost moved 
to begin a massacre of the defense¬ 
less abominations about me, but I 
contained myself. This hillock, as 
I have said, was a kind of island in 
the forest. From its summit I could 
now make out, through a haze of 
smoke, the Palace of Green Porce¬ 
lain, and from that I could get my 
bearings for the white sphinx. And 
so leaving the remnant of these 
damned souls going hither and thither 
and moaning, as the day grew clearer, 


*84 THE TIME MACHINE. 

I tied some grass about my feet and 
limped on across smoking ashes and 
among black stems that still pulsated 
internally with fire, toward the hid¬ 
ing place of the Time Machine. 

“I walked slc^vly, for I was almost 
exhausted as well as lame, and I felt 
the most intense wretchedness on 
account of the horrible death of little 
>Weena, which then seemed an over¬ 
whelming calamity. Yet even now, 
as I tell you of it in this old familiar 
room, it seems more like the sorrow 
of a dream than an actual loss. But 
it left me absolutely lonely again that 
morning—terribly alone. I began to 
think of this house of mine, of this 
fireside, of some of you, and with 
such thoughts came a longing that 
was pain. 

“As I walked over the smoking 
ashes under the bright morning sky 
I made a discovery. In my trouser 
pocket were still some loose matches. 
The box must have leaked before it 
was lost! 


CHAPTER XII. 



XLbc Grap of tfce TObfte Spblnr. 

O about eight or nine in the 
morning I came to the same 
seat of yellow metal from 
which I had viewed the world upon 
the evening of my arrival. I thought 
of my hasty conclusions upon that 
evening and could not refrain from 
laughing bitterly at my confidence. 
Here was the same beautiful scene, the 
same abundant foliage, the same splen¬ 
did palaces and magnificent ruins, the 
same silver river running between its 
fertile banks. The gay robes of the 
beautiful people moved hither and 
thither among the trees. Some were 
bathing in exactly the place where I 
had saved Weena, and that suddenly 
gave me a keen stab of pain. And 
like blots upon the landscape rose 

18 s 




i86 


THE TIME MACHINE. 


the cupolas above the ways to the 
underworld. I understood now what 
all the beauty of the overworld 
people covered. Very pleasant was 
their day, as pleasant as the day of 
the cattle in the field. Like the cattle 
they knew of no enemies, and pro¬ 
vided against no needs. And their 
end was the same. 

“ I grieved to think how brief the 
dream of the human intellect had 
been. It had committed suicide. It 
had set itself steadfastly toward com¬ 
fort and ease, a balanced society with 
security and permanence as its watch¬ 
words, it had attained its hopes—to 
come to this at last. Once, life and 
property must have reached almost 
absolute safety. The rich had been 
assured of his wealth and comfort, 
the toiler assured of his life and work. 
No doubt in that perfect world there 
had been no unemployed problem, 
no social question left unsolved. 
And a great quiet had followed. 

“ It is a law of nature we overlook, 


the trap of the white sphinx. 187 

that intellectual versatility is the 
compensation for change, danger, 
and trouble. An animal perfectly 
in harmony with its environment is 
a perfect mechanism. Nature never 
appeals to intelligence until habit 
and instinct are useless. There is no 
intelligence where there is no change 
and no need of change. Only those 
animals partake of intelligence that 
have to meet a huge variety of needs 
and dangers. 

“ So, as I see it, the upperworld man 
had drifted toward his feeble pretti¬ 
ness, and the underworld to mere 
mechanical industry. But that perfect 
state had lacked one thing even of 
mechanical perfection—absolute per¬ 
manency. Apparently as time went 
on the feeding of the underworld, 
however it was effected, had become 
disjointed. Mother Necessity, who 
had been staved off for a few thou¬ 
sand years, came back again, and she 
began below. The underworld, being 
in contact with machinery which, 


i88 


THE TIME MACHINE. 


however perfect, still needs some little 
thought outside of habit, had prob¬ 
ably retained, perforce, rather more 
initiative, if less of every other human 
character, than the upper. And when 
other meat failed them, they turned 
to what old habit had hitherto for¬ 
bidden. So I say I saw it in my last 
view of the world of 810,701. It may 
be as wrong an explanation as mortal 
wit could invent. It is how the 
thing shaped itself to me, and as 
that I give it to you. 

“After the fatigues, excitements, 
and terrors of the past days, and in 
spite of my grief, this seat and the 
tranquil view and the warm sunlight 
were very pleasant. I was very tired 
and sleepy, and soon my theorizing 
passed into dozing. Catching my¬ 
self at that I took my own hint, and 
spreading myself out upon the turf, 
I had a long and refreshing sleep. 

“I awoke a little before sunset¬ 
ting. I now felt safe against being 
caught napping by the Morlocks, and 


THE TRAP OP THE WHITE SPHINX. 1 89 

stretching myself I came on down the 
hill toward the white sphinx. I had 
my crowbar in one hand, and the 
other played with the matches in my 
pocket. 

“And now came a most unex¬ 
pected thing. As I approached the 
pedestal of the sphinx I found the 
bronze panels were open. They had 
slid down into grooves. 

“At that I stopped short before 
them, hesitating to enter. 

“Within was a small apartment, 
and on a raised place in the corner 
of this was the Time Machine. I 
had the small levers in my pocket. 
So here, after all my elaborate prep¬ 
arations for the siege of the white 
sphinx, was a meek surrender. I 
threw my iron bar away, almost sorry 
not to use it. 

“ A sudden thought came into my 
head as I stooped toward the portal. 
For once at least I grasped the men¬ 
tal operations of the Morlocks. Sup¬ 
pressing a strong inclination to laugh, 


THE TIME MACHINE. 


190 

I stepped through the bronze frame 
and up to the Time Machine. I was 
surprised to find it had been care¬ 
fully oiled and cleaned. I have sus¬ 
pected since that the Morlocks had 
even partially taken it to pieces while 
trying in their dim way to grasp its 
purpose. 

“ Now, as I stood and examined 
it, finding a pleasure in the mere 
touch of the contrivance, the thing 
I had expected happened. The 
bronze panels suddenly slid up and 
struck the frame with a clang. I 
was in the dark—trapped. So the 
Morlocks thought. At that I 
chuckled gleefully. 

“ I could already hear their mur¬ 
muring laughter as they came to¬ 
ward me. Very calmly I tried to 
strike the match. I had only to fix 
on the levers and depart then like a 
ghost. But I had overlooked one 
little thing. The matches were of 
that abominable kind that light only 
on the boxo 


THE TRAP OF THE WHITE SPHINX. 191 

“You may imagine how all my 
calm vanished. The little brutes 
were close upon me. One touched 
me. I made a sweeping blow in the 
dark at them with the lever, and be¬ 
gan to scramble into the saddle of 
the Machine. Then came one hand 
upon me and then another. 

“Then I had simply to fight against 
their persistent fingers for my levers, 
and at the same time feel for the 
studs over which these fitted. One, 
indeed, they almost got away from 
me. As it slipped from my hand 
I had to butt in the dark with my 
head—I could hear the Morlock’s 
skull ring—to recover it. It was a 
nearer thing than the fight in the 
forest, I think, this last scramble. 

“ But at last the lever was fixed 
and pulled over. The clinging 
hands slipped from me. The dark¬ 
ness presently fell from my eyes. 
I found myself in the same gray 
light and tumult I have already 
described 


> 


CHAPTER XIII. 

Zbc ffurtber HMslon. 

HAVE already told you of 
the sickness and confusion 
that comes with time travel¬ 
ing. And this time I was not seated 
properly in the saddle, but sideways 
and in an unstable fashion. For an 
indefinite time I clung to the machine 
as it swayed and vibrated, quite 
unheeding how I went, and when I 
brought myself to look at the dials 
again I was amazed to find where I 
had arrived. One dial records days, 
another thousands of days, another 
millions of days, and another thou¬ 
sands of millions. Now instead of 
reversing the levers I had pulled 
them over so as to go forward with 
them, and when I came to look at 
these indicators I found that the 



192 





THE FURTHER VISION. 193 

thousands hand was sweeping round 
as fast as the seconds hand of a 
watch, into futurity. 

“Very cautiously, for I remem¬ 
bered my former headlong fall, I be¬ 
gan to reverse my motion. Slower 
and slower went the circling hands, 
until the thousands one seemed mo¬ 
tionless and the daily one was no 
longer a mere mist upon its scale. 
Still slower, until the gray haze 
around me became distincter, and dim 
outlines of a low hill and a sea be¬ 
came visible. 

“But as my motion became slower 
there was, I found, no blinking 
change of day and night. A steady 
twilight brooded over the earth. 
And the band of light that had indi¬ 
cated the sun had, I now noticed, 
become fainter, had faded indeed to 
invisibility in the east, and in the 
west was increasingly broader and 
redder. The circling of the stars 
growing slower and slower had given 
place to creeping points of light. At 


194 


THE TIME MACHINE . 


last, some time before I stopped, the 
sun, red and very large, halted 
motionless upon the horizon, a vast 
dome glowing with a dull heat. The 
work of the tidal drag was accom¬ 
plished. The earth had come to rest 
with one face to the sun even as in 
our own time the moon faces the 
earth. 

“I stopped very gently and sat upon 
the Time Machine looking round me. 

“The sky was no longer blue. 
Northeastward it was inky black, and 
out of the blackness shone brightly 
and steadily the pale white stars. 
Overhead it was a deep Indian red, 
and starless, and southeastward it 
grew brighter to where, cut by the 
horizon, lay the motionless hull of 
the huge red sun. 

“The rocks about me were of a 
harsh reddish color, and all the trace 
of life that I could see at first was 
the intensely green vegetation that 
covered every projecting point on its 
southeastern side. It was the same 


THE FURTHER VISION. 195 

fich green that one sees on forest 
moss or on the lichen in caves, plants 
which, like these, grow in a perpetual 
twilight. 

“The Machine was standing on a 
sloping beach. The sea stretched 
away to the southwest to rise into 
a sharp bright horizon against the 
wan sky. There were no breakers 
and no waves, for not a breath of 
wind was stirring. Only a slight oily 
swell rose and fell like a gentle 
breathing, and showed that the 
eternal sea was still moving and liv¬ 
ing. And along the margin where 
the water sometimes broke was a 
thick incrustation of salt—pink under 
the lurid sky. 

“There was a sense of oppression 
in my head and I noticed that I was 
breathing very fast. The sensations 
remind me of my only experience 
of mountaineering, and from that I 
judged the air was more rarified than 
it is now. 

“Far away up the desolate slope I 


jqb THE TIME MACHINE. 

heard a harsh scream, and saw a 
thing like a huge white butterfly go 
slanting and fluttering up into the 
sky and, circling, disappear over some 
low hillocks beyond. 

“The sound of its voice was so 
dismal that I shivered, and seated 
myself more firmly upon the Ma¬ 
chine. 

“Looking round me I saw that, 
quite near to me, what I had taken to 
be a reddish mass of rock was mov¬ 
ing slowly toward me. Then I saw 
the thing was really a monstrous 
crab-like creature. Can you imagine 
a crab as large as yonder table, with 
its numerous legs moving slowly and 
uncertainly, its big claws swaying, its 
long antennae like carters’ whips, 
waving and feeling, and its stalked 
eyes gleaming at you on either side 
of its metallic front? Its back was 
corrugated and ornamented with un¬ 
gainly bosses, and a greenish incrus¬ 
tation blotched it here and there. I 
could see the numerous palps of its 


THE FURTHER VISION. 197 

complicated mouth flickering and 
feeling as it approached. 

“As I stared at this sinister appari¬ 
tion crawling toward me, I felt a 
tickling on my cheeks as though a fly 
had alighted there. 

“I tried to brush it away with my 
hand, but in a moment it returned, 
and almost immediately after another 
came near my ear. I struck at this 
and caught something threadlike. It 
was drawn swiftly out of my hand. 
With a frightful qualm I turned and 
saw I had grasped the antennas of 
another monster crab that stood im¬ 
mediately behind me. Its evil eyes 
were wriggling on their stalks, its 
mouth was all alive with appetite, 
and its vast ungainly claws, smeared 
with green slime, were descending 
upon me. 

“In a moment my hand was on the 
lever of the Time Machine, and I 
had place a month between myself 
and these monsters. But I found I 
was still on the same beach and I saw 


I98 THE TIME MACHINE. 

them distinctly now as soon as I 
stopped. Dozens of them seemed to 
be crawling here and there in the 
somber light among the foliated 
sheets of intense green. 

“I cannot convey the sense of 
abominable desolation that hung over 
the world. The red eastern sky, the 
northward blackness, the salt Dead 
Sea, the stony beach crawling with 
these foul, slow-stirring monsters, the 
uniform, poisonous-looking green of 
the lichenous plants, the thin air that 
hurt one’s lungs; all contributed to 
an appalling effect. 

“I moved on a hundred years, and 
there was the same red sun, the same 
dying sea, the same chill air, and 
the same crowd of earthly Crustacea 
creeping in and out among the green 
weed and the red rocks. 

“So I traveled, stopping ever and 
again, in great strides of a thousand 
years or more, drawn on by the mys¬ 
tery of the earth’s fate, tracing with 
a strange fascination how the sun was 


THE FURTHER VISION . 199 

growing larger and duller in the west¬ 
ward sky, and the life of the old 
earth ebbing out. At last, more than 
thirty million years hence, the huge 
red-hot dome of the sun had come to 
obscure nearly a sixth part of the 
darkling heavens. Then it was I 
stopped, for the crawling multitude 
of crabs had disappeared, and the red 
beach, save for its livid green liver¬ 
worts and lichens, seemed lifeless 
again. 

“As soon as I stopped a bitter cold 
assailed me. The air felt keenly 
cold, and rare white flakes ever and 
again came eddying down. To the 
northeastward the glare of snow lay 
under the starlight of the sable sky, 
and I could see an undulating crest 
of pinkish white hillocks. There 
were fringes of ice along the sea mar¬ 
gin, drifting masses further out, but 
the main expanse of that salt ocean, 
all bloody under the eternal sunset, 
was still unfrozen. 

“I looked about me to see if any 


200 


THE TIME MACHINE. 


traces of animals remained. A cer¬ 
tain indefinable apprehension still 
kept me in the saddle of the Machine. 
I saw nothing moving, on earth or 
sky or sea. The green slime on the 
rocks alone testified that life was not 
extinct. A shallow sandbank had 
appeared in the sea and the water 
had receded from the beach. I 
fancied I saw some black object flop¬ 
ping about upon this bank, but it 
became motionless as I looked at it, 
and I judged my eye had been de¬ 
ceived and that the object was merely 
a rock. The stars in the sky were 
intensely bright and seemed to me to 
twinkle very little. 

“Suddenly I noticed that the circu¬ 
lar outline, westward, of the sun had 
changed, that a concavity, a bay, had 
appeared in the curve. I saw this 
grow larger. For a minute, perhaps, 
I stared aghast at this blackness that 
was creeping over the day, and then I 
realized that an eclipse was begin¬ 
ning. No doubt, now that the moon 


THE FURTHER VIST OH. 


201 


was creeping ever nearer to the earth, 
and the earth to the sun, eclipses 
were of frequent occurrence. 

“The darkness grew apace, a cold 
wind began to blow in freshening 
gusts from the east, and then the 
white flakes that were falling out of 
the air increased. The tide was 
creeping in with a ripple and a 
whisper. Beyond these lifeless 
sounds the world was silent—silent! 
It would be hard to convey to you 
the stillness of it. All the sounds of 
man, the bleating of sheep, the cries 
of birds, the hum of insects, the stir 
that makes the background of our 
lives, were over As the darkness 
thickened the eddying flakes became 
more abundant, dancing before my 
eyes; and the cold of the air more 
intense. At last, swiftly, one after 
the other, the white peaks of the dis¬ 
tant hills vanished into blackness. 
The breeze grew to a moaning wind. 
I saw the black central shadow of 
the eclipse sweeping toward me. In 


202 


THE TIME MACHINE. 


another moment the pale stars alone 
were visible. All else was rayless ob¬ 
scurity. The sky was absolutely black. 

“A horror of this great darkness 
came upon me. The cold that smote 
to my marrow, and the pain I felt in 
breathing, overcame me. I shivered 
and a deadly nausea seized me. 
Then like a red-hot bow in the sky 
appeared the edge of the sun. 

“I got off the Machine to recover 
myself. I felt giddy and incapable 
of facing the return journey. As I 
stood sick and confused I saw again 
the moving thing upon the shoal— 
there was no mistake now that it was 
a moving thing—against the red 
water of the sea. It was a round 
thing, of the size of a football per¬ 
haps, or bigger; it seemed black 
against the weltering blood-red water, 
and it was hopping fitfully about. 
Then I felt I was fainting. A ter¬ 
rible dread of lying helpless in that 
remote twilight sustained me while I 
clambered upon the saddle. 


THE FURTHER VISION. 


203 


“So I came homeo For a long time 
I must have been insensible upon 
the Machine. The blinking succes¬ 
sion of the days and nights was 
resumed* the sun grew golden again, 
the sky blue. I breathed with 
greater freedom. The fluctuating 
contours of the land ebbed and 
flowed. The hands spun backward 
upon the dials. At last I saw again 
the dim shadows of homes, the evi¬ 
dences of decadent humanity. 
These, too, changed and passed, and 
others came. Presently when the 
millions dial was at zero I slackened 
speed, and began to recognize our 
own pretty and familiar architec¬ 
ture. The thousands hand ran back 
to the starting point, the night and 
day flapped slower and slower. 
Then the old walls of the labora¬ 
tory came round me. Very gently 
now I diminished the pace of the 
mechanism. 

“I saw one little thing that seemed 
odd to me. I think I have told you 


204 


THE TIME MACHINE . 


that when I set out, before my veloc¬ 
ity became very high, Mrs. Watchett 
had walked across the room, travel¬ 
ing, as it seemed to me, like a rocket. 
As I returned I passed again across 
that minute when she traversed the 
laboratory. But now every motion 
appeared to be the exact inversion of 
her previous one. The door at the 
lower end opened and she glided 
quietly up the laboratory, back fore¬ 
most, and disappeared behind the 
door by which she had previously 
entered. 

“Then I stopped the Machine, and 
saw about me again the old familiar 
laboratory, my tools, my appliances, 
just as I had left them. I got off 
the thing very shakily and sat down 
upon my bench. For several minutes 
I trembled violently. Then I be¬ 
came calmer. Around me was my 
old workshop again, exactly as it had 
been. I might have slept there and 
the whole thing have been a dream. 

“And yet not exactly. The thing 


THE FURTHER VISION. 


205 


had started from the southeast corner 
of the laboratory. It had come to 
rest again in the northwest, against 
the wall, where you will find it. That 
gives you the exact distance from 
my little lawn to the pedestal of the 
white sphinx. 

“For a time my brain became stag¬ 
nant. Presently I got up and came 
through the passage here, limping, 
because my heel was still painful, and 
feeling sorely begrimed. I saw the 
Pall Mall Gazette on the table by 
the door. I found the date was in¬ 
deed to-day, and looking at the time¬ 
piece, saw the hour was almost eight 
o’clock. I heard your voices and 
the clatter of plates. I hesitated— 
I felt so sick and weak. Then I 
sniffed good wholesome meat, and 
opened the door. You know the 
rest. I washed and dined, and now 
I am telling you the story. 

“I know,” he said after a while, 
“that all this will be absolutely in- 


206 


THE TIME MACHINE . 


credible to you, but to me the one 
incredible thing is that I am here to¬ 
night in this old familiar room, look¬ 
ing into your wholesome faces, and 
telling you all these strange adven¬ 
tures/’ 

He looked at the Medical Man. 

“No; I cannot expect you to 
believe it. Take it as a lie, or a 
prophecy. Say I dreamed it in the 
workshop. Consider I have been 
speculating upon the destinies of our 
race, until I have hatched this fiction. 
Treat my assertion of its truth as a 
mere stroke of art to enhance its in¬ 
terest. And taking it as a story, 
what do you think of it?” 

He took up his pipe and began in 
his old accustomed manner to tap 
upon the bars of the grate. 


CHAPTER XIV. 

Bfter tbc Trim c traveler's Storg. 


HERE was a momentary 
stillness. Then chairs be¬ 
gan to creak and shoes to 
scrape upon the carpet. I took my 
eyes off the Time Traveler’s face 
and looked round at his audience. 
They were in the dark and little spots 
of color swam before them. The 
Medical Man seemed absorbed in 
the contemplation of our host. The 
Editor was looking hard at the end 
of his cigar—the sixth. The Jour¬ 
nalist fumbled for his watch. The 
others as far as I remember were 
motionless. 

The Editor stood up with a sigh. 

“What a pity it is you’re not a 
writer of stories!” he said, putting 



307 




208 


THE TIME MACHINE . 


his hand on the Time Traveler’s 
shoulder. 

“You don’t believe it?” 

“Well-” 

“I thought not.” The Time Trav¬ 
eler turned round to us. “Where 
are the matches?” he said. He lit 
one and spoke over his pipe, puffing, 
“To tell you all the truth—I hardly 
believe it myself—and yet-” 

His eyes fell with a mute inquiry 
upon the withered white flowers upon 
the little table„ Then he turned over 
the hand holding his pipe, and I saw 
he was looking at some half healed 
scars on his knuckles. 

The Medical Man rose, came 
to the lamp, and examined the 
flowers. “The gynoecium’s odd,” 
he said. 

The Psychologist leaned forward 
to see, holding out his hand for a 
specimen. 

“I’m hanged if it isn’t a quarter 
to one,” said the Journalist. “How 
shall we get home?” 


AFTER THE STORY. 


209 


“Plenty of cabs at the station/* 
said the Psychologist. 

“It’s a curious thing,” said the 
Medical Man; “but I certainly don’t 
know the natural order of these 
flowers. May I have them?” 

The Time Traveler hesitated. 
Then suddenly, “Certainly not.” 

“Where did you really get them?” 
said the Medical Man. 

The Time Traveler put his hand 
to his head. He spoke like one who 
was trying to keep hold of an idea 
that eluded him. “They were put 
into my pocket by Weena—when I 
traveled into Time.” He stared 

round the room. “I’m d-d if it 

isn't all going. This room and you 
and the atmosphere of everyday is 
too much for my memory. Did I 
ever make a Time Machine, or a 
model of a Time Machine, or is it 
all only a dream? They say life is 
a dream, a precious poor dream at 
times—but I can’t stand another 
that won’t fit. It’s madness. And 


210 


THE TIME MACHINE . 


where did the dream come from? I 
must look at that Machine. If there 
is one/* 

He caught up the lamp swiftly and 
carried it flaring redly through the 
door into the corridor. 

We followed him. 

There in the flickering light of the 
lamp was the Machine, sure enough, 
squat, ugly, and askew, a thing of 
brass, ebony, ivory, and translucent, 
glimmering quartz. Solid to the 
touch—for I put out my hand and 
felt the rail of it—and with brown 
spots and smears upon the ivory, 
and bits of grass and moss upon 
the lower parts, and one rail bent 
awry. 

The Time Traveler put the lamp 
down on the bench, and ran his hand 
along the broken rail. 

“It’s all right now,” he said. 
“The story I told you was true. 
I'm sorry to have brought you out 
here—in the cold.” 

He took up the lamp, and in a» 


AFTER THE STORY. 


211 


absolute silence we returned to the 
smoking room. 

The Time Traveler came into the 
hall with us and helped the Editor 
on with his coat. The Medical Man 
looked into our host’s face and, with 
a certain hesitation, told him he was 
suffering from overwork, at which 
he laughed hugely. I remember 
him standing in the open doorway 
bawling good-night. 

I shared a cab with the Editor. 
He thought the tale a “gaudy lie.” 
For my own part I was unable to 
come to any conclusion about the 
matter. The story was so fantastic 
and incredible, the telling so credible 
and sober. I lay awake most of the 
night thinking about it. I deter¬ 
mined to go next day and see the 
Time Traveler again. 

I was told he was in the laboratory, 
and being on easy terms in the house 
I went up to him. The laboratory, 
however, was empty. I stared for 
a minute at the Time Machine and 


212 


THE TIME MACHINE. 


put out my hand and touched a 
lever. At that the squat, substantial- 
looking mass swayed like a bough 
shaken by the wind. Its instability 
startled me extremely, and I had a 
queer reminiscence of childish days 
when I used to be forbidden to 
meddle. I came back through the 
corridor. The Time Traveler met 
me in the smoking room. He was 
coming from the house. He had a 
small camera under one arm and a 
knapsack under the other. He 
laughed when he saw me and gave 
me an elbow to shake. 

“I’m frightfully busy,” he said; 
“with that thing in there.” 

“But is it not some hoax?” said 
I. “Do you really travel through 
Time?” 

“Really and truly I do.” And he 
looked frankly into my eyes. 

He hesitated. His eye wandered 
round the room. “I only want half 
an hour,” he said. “I know why 
you came, and it’s awfully good of 


AFTER THE STORY. 


213 


you. There’s some magazines here. 
If you’ll stop to lunch I’ll prove this 
time traveling to you up to the hilt. 
Specimens and all. If you’ll forgive 
my leaving you now?” 

I consented, hardly comprehend¬ 
ing then the full import of his 
words, and he nodded and went on 
down the corridor. I heard the 
door of the laboratory slam, seated 
myself in a chair, and took up the 
New Review. What was he going to 
do before lunch time? Then sud¬ 
denly I was reminded by an adver¬ 
tisement that I had promised to meet 
Richardson the publisher at two. 
I looked at my watch, and saw I 
qould barely save that engagement, 
I got up and went down the passage 
to tell the Time Traveler. 

As I took hold of the handle of 
the door I heard an exclamation 
oddly truncated at the end, and a 
click and a thud. A gust of air 
whirled round me as I opened the 
door, and from within came the 


214 THE TIME MACHINE . 

sound of broken glass falling on the 
floor. The Time Traveler was not 
there. I seemed to see a ghostly- 
indistinct figure sitting in a whirling 
mass of black and brass for a 
moment, a figure so transparent that 
the bench behind with its sheets of 
drawings was absolutely distinct; 
but this phantasm I immediately 
perceived was illusory. The Time 
Machine had gone. Save for a sub¬ 
siding stir of dust the central space 
of the laboratory was empty. A 
pane of the skylight had apparently 
just been blown in. 

I felt an unreasonable amazement. 
I knew that something strange had 
happened, and for a moment could 
not distinguish what the strange thing 
might be. As I stood staring, the 
door into the garden opened, and 
the man-servant appeared. 

We looked at each other. Then 
ideas began to come. 

“Has Mr. -- 

way?*’ said I. 


gone out that 


AFTER THE STORY. 


215 


“No, sir. No one has come out 
this way. I was expecting to find 
him here.’* 

At that I understood. At the 
risk of disappointing Richardson I 
remained waiting for the Time 
Traveler, waiting for the second, 
perhaps still stranger, story, and the 
specimens and photographs he would 
bring with him. 

But I am beginning to fear now 
that I must wait a lifetime for that. 
The Time Traveler vanished three 
years ago. Up to the present he has 
not returned, and when he does 
return he will find his home in the 
hands of strangers and his little 
gathering of auditors broken up for¬ 
ever. Filby has exchanged poetry 
for play writing, and is a rich man—as 
literary men go—and extremely un¬ 
popular. The Medical Man is dead, 
the Journalist is in India, and the 
Psychologist has succumbed to par¬ 
alysis. Some of the other men I 
used to meet there have dropped as 


216 THE TIME MACHINE. 

completely out of existence as if they, 
too, had traveled off upon some simi¬ 
lar anachronisms. And so, ending 
in a kind of dead wall, the story of 
the Time Machine must remain for 
the present at least. 


1HE END. 













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